So just going to keep intoning the terms of service as a mantra without trying to understand how highly illegal it would it be in the EU to take someone's money one day and literally the very next day take away from them what they had just paid for.
I think someone a lot smarter and more talented than me, (ok, im just lazy) should homebrew all the 2014 content and label it "legacy". Then we can enable homebrew content and select the legacy domains, feats and spells :)
Or Beyond can just make a toggle like they have for Critical Role, Drakkenheim, Humblewood, Grim Hollow, Kobold Press, MCDM, Minecraft, Rick and Morty
When you buy a hard copy book, you are similarly not buying ownership of the words in that book. We are not discussing an MMO here, or even any online single player game.
How far the license functions should WotC simply decide to shut down all services is unclear, but their wording and what the EU regs actually say applies in reality are not necessarily the same.
Leaving aside your odd understanding of physical media ownership, while I have been sharing relevant parts of the TOS here, I have yet to see anyone share actual relevant EU laws concerning it that is in conflict. You can't just say "EU laws man!" and hope it makes sense. You can either trust that the company you are purchasing from (WotC) has done its due diligence concerning government regulations, or you can show which regulations they have violated and sue in a court of law to address the issue. Otherwise, you are just sorta pissing in the wind about what you think words mean.
Answer honestly:
If Wizards decided Beyond was just not profitable enough and ultimately decided to shut it down and you were not in any way going to be compensated for all that had you spent here you would believe that is perfectly acceptable?
As this is not my first rodeo with paying for WotC-run digital services that got mothballed.....yes. I know what I have paid for and if it all went away tomorrow I would have gotten my money's worth out of the service over the time I have used it.
It is 2024. If you are adult enough to make online purchases, you are are also adult enough to know what you are buying and are able to make the judgement that it is worth it or not if the digital service vanishes.
I think you need to go and look up the definition of a license to use a product because Mongoose has literally just shown you the terms and conditions that says you didn't purchase a copy, you don't own anything on this site and they can take away or change your access at any time. And it's nothing like your rather stupid porche analogy, you actually own a car, what it is exactly like is buying acces to an online computer game where a few years later they decide you can no longer play unless you install the new update. Both that computer game and D&D Beyond only ever sold you access, not an actual product. You're more than welcome to throw your toys out your pram and refuse to ever use the site again but that's exactly what you signed up for when you ticked the "I've read the terms and conditions" box without actually reading the terms and conditions
I think Mongoose needs to go and read European law which aggressively favors consumers when it comes to their making purchases that provide them access to online content. I ain't throwing toys out of a pram. That behavior more accurately describes those who see Wizards as infallible and who spend half their waking hours defending their every decision no matter how many of their subscribers or those in the broader table-top community they tick off because you can't begin to fathom a multibillion dollar corporation that provides you a product you are tethered to ain't saints.
I'm not defending anything, I'm simply pointing out the reality of what we purchased; a license to use certain online assets on the D&D Beyond site and app and not ownership of those assets or a guarantee of those assets remaining unchanging. Whether I like it or not is irrelevant, I read the T&Cs and clicked the button saying that's what I agreed to, and over the years I've experienced far too many online products either change or simply stop all together to be under any illusions that WotC are alone or even unusual in these practices
The day before the 2024 PHB dropped on this site purchasing the old PHB guaranteed you access to its contents in the toolkit.
You are deluded if you honestly believe Wizards would have had a case in Europe having to prove the disclaimers alone permit them to sell something and take it away the very next day.
I never said there wouldn't be a case to be made in Europe, I simply said that no one has tried it yet and until they do we're living in a reality where we don't own the stuff we purchase on most websites. Law is after all based on precedent and if there's no precedent set by the EU courts then we're at the mercy of what US lawyers decide. I genuinely do look forward to someone taking (probably Amazon or Apple) to court over ownership of digital assets but until it happens I'm not going to stamp my foot and pretend I live in a world where the law already protects me and instead be resigned to the fact my D&D Beyond books are at the whim of WotC
EDIT: You also don't have to work very hard to imagine the defences that will be used and sound reasonable. "We can't afford servers forever so sooner or later we need the option to turn things off", "We need to be able to issue software updates or errata without asking every single person every time" are just two. Don't forget that any discussion around this in court wouldn't just be D&D Beyond, it would be the entire total of eBooks ever sold, computer games and MMOs, apps on phones, and dozens of other online services that blur the border between ownership and licensing
As this is not my first rodeo with paying for WotC-run digital services that got mothballed.....yes. I know what I have paid for and if it all went away tomorrow I would have gotten my money's worth out of the service over the time I have used it.
It is 2024. If you are adult enough to make online purchases, you are are also adult enough to know what you are buying and are able to make the judgement that it is worth it or not if the digital service vanishes.
Well we are all adults here. But some of us still can't quite fathom how in Europe you would not get away with selling an online service to someone then taking it away literally the very next day. Also: I have my doubts you'd simply shrug off this site's demise. Wizards' constant defenders seem to spend half their waking hours here. And most of them defending Wizards and not even bloody well playing the game.
I think you need to go and look up the definition of a license to use a product because Mongoose has literally just shown you the terms and conditions that says you didn't purchase a copy, you don't own anything on this site and they can take away or change your access at any time. And it's nothing like your rather stupid porche analogy, you actually own a car, what it is exactly like is buying acces to an online computer game where a few years later they decide you can no longer play unless you install the new update. Both that computer game and D&D Beyond only ever sold you access, not an actual product. You're more than welcome to throw your toys out your pram and refuse to ever use the site again but that's exactly what you signed up for when you ticked the "I've read the terms and conditions" box without actually reading the terms and conditions
I think Mongoose needs to go and read European law which aggressively favors consumers when it comes to their making purchases that provide them access to online content. I ain't throwing toys out of a pram. That behavior more accurately describes those who see Wizards as infallible and who spend half their waking hours defending their every decision no matter how many of their subscribers or those in the broader table-top community they tick off because you can't begin to fathom a multibillion dollar corporation that provides you a product you are tethered to ain't saints.
I'm not defending anything, I'm simply pointing out the reality of what we purchased; a license to use certain online assets on the D&D Beyond site and app and not ownership of those assets or a guarantee of those assets remaining unchanging. Whether I like it or not is irrelevant, I read the T&Cs and clicked the button saying that's what I agreed to, and over the years I've experienced far too many online products either change or simply stop all together to be under any illusions that WotC are alone or even unusual in these practices
The day before the 2024 PHB dropped on this site purchasing the old PHB guaranteed you access to its contents in the toolkit.
You are deluded if you honestly believe Wizards would have had a case in Europe having to prove the disclaimers alone permit them to sell something and take it away the very next day.
I never said there wouldn't be a case to be made in Europe, I simply said that no one has tried it yet and until they do we're living in a reality where we don't own the stuff we purchase on most websites. Law is after all based on precedent and if there's no precedent set by the EU courts then we're at the mercy of what US lawyers decide. I genuinely do look forward to someone taking (probably Amazon or Apple) to court over ownership of digital assets but until it happens I'm not going to stamp my foot and pretend I live in a world where the law already protects me and instead be resigned to the fact my D&D Beyond books are at the whim of WotC
Only time will tell. But I would not have wanted to be Wizards had they not changed course and had found themselves up against the Digital Services Act and particularly where it concerns consumer/user rights when it comes to online marketplaces.
As this is not my first rodeo with paying for WotC-run digital services that got mothballed.....yes. I know what I have paid for and if it all went away tomorrow I would have gotten my money's worth out of the service over the time I have used it.
It is 2024. If you are adult enough to make online purchases, you are are also adult enough to know what you are buying and are able to make the judgement that it is worth it or not if the digital service vanishes.
Well we are all adults here. But some of us still can't quite fathom how in Europe you would not get away with selling an online service to someone then taking it away literally the very next day. Also: I have my doubts you'd simply shrug off this site's demise. Wizards' constant defenders seem to spend half their waking hours here. And most of them defending Wizards and not even bloody well playing the game.
Doubt if you wish. I lost more when the 4th Ed subscription service died than I will lose here for another few years of buying services. These things happen. If you think for a moment that I won't be able to find an alternative to D&D Beyond, should it fail, you are kidding yourself. Beyond just happens to be the most easy solution for my needs with the bonus of being "official."
Also, if you only have a vague understanding of EU law, then it would make sense why you are out of your depth and can't fathom the reality. You, of course, are always welcome to research the law and share here what parts you think are relevant.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
As this is not my first rodeo with paying for WotC-run digital services that got mothballed.....yes. I know what I have paid for and if it all went away tomorrow I would have gotten my money's worth out of the service over the time I have used it.
It is 2024. If you are adult enough to make online purchases, you are are also adult enough to know what you are buying and are able to make the judgement that it is worth it or not if the digital service vanishes.
Well we are all adults here. But some of us still can't quite fathom how in Europe you would not get away with selling an online service to someone then taking it away literally the very next day. Also: I have my doubts you'd simply shrug off this site's demise. Wizards' constant defenders seem to spend half their waking hours here. And most of them defending Wizards and not even bloody well playing the game.
Doubt if you wish. I lost more when the 4th Ed subscription service died than I will lose here for another few years of buying services. These things happen. If you think for a moment that I won't be able to find an alternative to D&D Beyond, should it fail, you are kidding yourself. Beyond just happens to be the most easy solution for my needs with the bonus of being "official."
Also, if you only have a vague understanding of EU law, then it would make sense why you are out of your depth and can't fathom the reality. You, of course, are always welcome to research the law and share here what parts you think are relevant.
You completely missed my point. It wasn't about D&D Beyond as a platform on which to play going bye-bye. But these forums. On which Wizards' most loyal appear to spend more time than they do playing. Me I don't care enough to do such research. You are the one who seems to believe Wizards' terms of service and even parts of it that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand are infallible and infinite in the eyes of the law. You do it.
I'm not terribly interested in doing your argument for you. Especially when it seems you are not even sure what you are arguing.
For those that come later, do be sure you enter into online purchases either assuming you are trading money for access to ephemeral materials or take the time to read and understand the TOS associated before purchase. Either option will save you spending a few forum pages sounding silly.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
I'm not terribly interested in doing your argument for you. Especially when it seems you are not even sure what you are arguing.
For those that come later, do be sure you enter into online purchases either assuming you are trading money for access to ephemeral materials or take the time to read and understand the TOS associated before purchase. Either option will save you spending a few forum pages sounding silly.
You are playing a game of semantics. It is not about the "materials" or how ephemeral they are.
How many times do you need to have it explained it you that it is about the service people have paid for and that ONE DAY before they were going to remove that service from customers they were still selling it to them ?
The wording in that purchase is that customers have access to the content in the book they are buying and do so in the tookit.
You cannot say that ONE DAY before taking away that very same access to that very same content. That is so grossly corrupt it would not have held up in court. No matter how much empty rhetoric is in the terms of service about how you don't "own" those materials. Instead of sounding like a disciple of some rampant pro-capitalist con use what pulses between your ears and think about it.
Look friend, it feels like you just want to be mad and you want to gripe about a perceived wrong (which is fine). If you don't understand why the service you are being mad about is the way it is, I'd again, suggest you actual take the time to understand the service you are spending money on and see why it is maybe not the service you had wanted.
4.7 Changes in Availability: We reserve the right to modify the availability, features, and prices of the content and items listed in the Marketplace, with no guarantee of future availability. We maintain the right to manage and adjust our offerings as needed, which includes changing fees or billing practices. Should any changes be unacceptable to you, your only recourse is to close your D&D Beyond account. Continuing to use D&D Beyond following any changes indicatesyour acceptance of these new terms.
Rights for European Union Residents:If you're a resident of the European Union, you have the right to cancel a purchase of Digital Content within 14 days, no questions asked. However, you acknowledge that this right is forfeited once we provide access to the Digital Content, as this constitutes the complete fulfillment of our Service from the moment your purchase is finalized, and the content becomes accessible on your account.
11.1 User Termination Rights: You may cease using D&D Beyond and its Services, as well as terminate your account or cancel your Subscription, at any time.
13.2 EU Residents' Dispute Resolution: For those residing in the European Union, we aim to respond to any claims or concerns within 14 days of receipt. Additionally, EU residents have the option to seek dispute resolution through any accredited out-of-court settlement body recognized by their country's Digital Services Coordinator.
14. GOVERNING LAW
14.1 Applicable Law: All interactions and agreements between you and us, including D&D Beyond and Services, are established in Washington and are governed by the laws of the State of Washington. This governance is applied withoutreference to conflict of laws provisions, and the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply.
14.2 Court Jurisdiction: For any legal matters not resolved through Section 20 of theGeneral Terms (which might refer to arbitration or an alternative dispute resolution method), both you and uswe agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of both state and federal courts located in King County, Washington. By agreeing to these terms, you relinquish any claim that courts in King County are an inappropriate venue for resolving disputes.
14.3 Claim Period: You have one year from the date an issue arises to initiate any claims or legal proceedings related to these Terms, your interactions with us, or any challenges encountered in using our platform and services.
14.4 Legal Expenses:Should any legal action be necessitated concerning these Terms, the party that prevails in such action will be entitled to recover all reasonable costs, including attorney fees and other expenses, from the non-prevailing party.
If you are unhappy, you can always ask for a refund and use a different service. If you find the company to be in breach of their responsibilities above, you are welcome to make the point in court. As it stands, the idea that a company would sell access to a digital toolkit and actually update it as needed is not an uncommon or scandalous prospect. I have a hard time expecting a court of law to show favor to your argument that you or others were irreparably harmed because you bought something that you didn't understand, then chose not to ask for a refund and seek service elsewhere.
Again, not my first rodeo with WotC and their digital offerings. The service isn't great, the tools are passable, and the pricing structure could be better for the consumer. But I know what I am dealing with and harbor no illusions when it comes to digital offerings of any kind. We live in a world where app gacha games can announce their launch and their impending closure at the top and bottom of the same announcement post and reap millions from whales who didn't bother to read past the cute wifu art. Educate yourselves when it comes to digital purchases of any kind or accept that you are just renting time and hope the experience you want is paid for equitably.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
Unbelievable. The thread is "Turning off, or disabling, 2024 content", and it devolved into an argument about the finer points of contract law in Europe.
I guess I don't understand why people get offended when someone simply asks for a choice. Early on in this thread, there was this:
On the other hand, if they annoy enough customers, they won't get enough sales to stay open either. There's a balancing act. I don't know the precise place where that lies, obviously, but I know some people are leaving over this issue. Some of them are "whales" - the kind that buy tons of books, even ones they don't have a realistic chance of using. For whatever reason, they just don't want 2024e, at least not just yet.
Well, I'm one of those "whales". I spent a ton of money on the "Big Ol' Studmuffin" package about five years ago when they had a sale and got access to every single source available at the time. I pre-ordered everything they released, got all the dice, etc. because I kind of treated it like an extension of my physical collection which includes all of the alternate cover editions of all of the 5e books. This doesn't make me special, although it probably reveals some sort of mental health issue.
I just started a game where two players are new and the other four haven't touched D&D in 20+ years. We had our Session Zero and I had everyone create an account so I could share source material from here and showed them how easy it was to track the game in the app. We had our first real session the day after the new material dropped.
Suddenly, they can't look up spells because they get a message that says "Can't find what you're looking for? Go to the marketplace.". Other searches result in things that a) don't exist, or b) are different from what they thought they knew.
Mid-session is not the time to teach new players about filters, legacy tags, etc. I know that's just rotten timing and not some intentional thing on WotC's part, but it does illustrate the problem.
I've canceled my subscription and for the reason why, I told them I'd come back if they add a toggle for 2014/2024/Both or if they gave us a way to put a global filter on our account so we don't have to select sources every single time we do a search. I fully expect this to not matter at all to them as it's only $50-ish per year, but it felt like the best decision for me.
If they want new book sales, then they should put out content that people want. They probably did that because this was supposed to be player-driven. However, if they want to maintain the revenue stream from the DDB site, then they should give subscribers what they want. An unhappy subscriber is very unlikely to purchase new content anyway, so not giving us what we want isn't going to somehow increase content sales.
While I won't argue that the current situation makes it easy to use the 2014 content exclusively, I believe that most of the people who are complaining just didn't actually scroll down far enough when they chose their character class when building their character. I am not super familiar with the D&D Beyond character creator (as I have made most of my characters on Roll20, essentially by hand), but I had already made up 2-3 characters here before made a Creation Bard for a new 2014 campaign. Originally I just picked the first "Bard" that came up on the list of classes, and then saw that I was getting the 2024 features. I had to toss that attempt out and scroll down a bit further to the "Legacy Bard" character class, and then everything stayed within the 2014 parameters for the most part. I think there might have been a few times when I had to make sure that I picked the Legacy spell when I was choosing them, but I have had no issues otherwise.
So, to sum up, a toggle would be easier, but if you just make sure to scroll down and pick a Legacy class when making a character, I think 99% of the problems people are grousing about here would be solved.
What's absolutely infuriating to me is that I no longer have access to content that I've already paid for. All the 2014 PHB, DMG etc content that I've paid for no longer appears when I want to create a new character.
I would tolerate this 2024 vs Legacy garbage if they'd still allow me access to my previous content, but they haven't. I can't use my "Legacy" PHB rules (and classes/subclasses/etc) at all, I'm limited to the handful of classes available and even smaller subset of sub-classes for character creation.
I was willing to work with them until this, now I'm just pissed off.
What's absolutely infuriating to me is that I no longer have access to content that I've already paid for. All the 2014 PHB, DMG etc content that I've paid for no longer appears when I want to create a new character.
I would tolerate this 2024 vs Legacy garbage if they'd still allow me access to my previous content, but they haven't. I can't use my "Legacy" PHB rules (and classes/subclasses/etc) at all, I'm limited to the handful of classes available and even smaller subset of sub-classes for character creation.
I was willing to work with them until this, now I'm just pissed off.
<sigh>
As has been noted a thousand times on this board. All of the 2014 content is still there. When choosing your class scroll further down for the 2014 legacy classes.
What's absolutely infuriating to me is that I no longer have access to content that I've already paid for. All the 2014 PHB, DMG etc content that I've paid for no longer appears when I want to create a new character.
I would tolerate this 2024 vs Legacy garbage if they'd still allow me access to my previous content, but they haven't. I can't use my "Legacy" PHB rules (and classes/subclasses/etc) at all, I'm limited to the handful of classes available and even smaller subset of sub-classes for character creation.
I was willing to work with them until this, now I'm just pissed off.
<sigh>
As has been noted a thousand times on this board. All of the 2014 content is still there. When choosing your class scroll further down for the 2014 legacy classes.
It is there, and they have done a great job of making it very difficult for users or it would not have been noted "a thousand times on this board"
THe passive aggressive nature of this punishment is not something people would expect from a company like wizbro, they remind me of a middle school DM that had the books, and threw a fit if someone didn't play the way they wanted. It is looking like it is time to do the same thing we did back then go get our own books (switch to a better company) and play without them.
Perhaps it’s time to remember that the original plan was for 2014/Legacy content to be completely unavailable for the online character sheet? So far, everything I have to do to use it is very manageable: scroll a little further down in dropdowns, make sure my spells have legacy tags, check the ones that don’t for 2014 eligibility, and ignore the extraneous tooltips that crop up in a couple of places. This is about a billion times better than being unable to use the online character sheet for any legacy content at all.
What we have now is a compromise and quite a serviceable one, IMHO. I mean, something has got to be first in a dropdown menu and something has to be last. It’s no one’s problem to solve but your own if you don’t look at the entirety of the options. This isn’t a matter of we got a crap thing and we’d better be grateful for it, it’s a case where they listened and responded to the customer base but people still refuse to ackowledge or appreciate the massive course change made to accommodate us because they didn’t get exactly, precisely what they wanted.
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So just going to keep intoning the terms of service as a mantra without trying to understand how highly illegal it would it be in the EU to take someone's money one day and literally the very next day take away from them what they had just paid for.
I think someone a lot smarter and more talented than me, (ok, im just lazy) should homebrew all the 2014 content and label it "legacy". Then we can enable homebrew content and select the legacy domains, feats and spells :)
Or Beyond can just make a toggle like they have for Critical Role, Drakkenheim, Humblewood, Grim Hollow, Kobold Press, MCDM, Minecraft, Rick and Morty
As this is not my first rodeo with paying for WotC-run digital services that got mothballed.....yes. I know what I have paid for and if it all went away tomorrow I would have gotten my money's worth out of the service over the time I have used it.
It is 2024. If you are adult enough to make online purchases, you are are also adult enough to know what you are buying and are able to make the judgement that it is worth it or not if the digital service vanishes.
I never said there wouldn't be a case to be made in Europe, I simply said that no one has tried it yet and until they do we're living in a reality where we don't own the stuff we purchase on most websites. Law is after all based on precedent and if there's no precedent set by the EU courts then we're at the mercy of what US lawyers decide. I genuinely do look forward to someone taking (probably Amazon or Apple) to court over ownership of digital assets but until it happens I'm not going to stamp my foot and pretend I live in a world where the law already protects me and instead be resigned to the fact my D&D Beyond books are at the whim of WotC
EDIT: You also don't have to work very hard to imagine the defences that will be used and sound reasonable. "We can't afford servers forever so sooner or later we need the option to turn things off", "We need to be able to issue software updates or errata without asking every single person every time" are just two. Don't forget that any discussion around this in court wouldn't just be D&D Beyond, it would be the entire total of eBooks ever sold, computer games and MMOs, apps on phones, and dozens of other online services that blur the border between ownership and licensing
Well we are all adults here. But some of us still can't quite fathom how in Europe you would not get away with selling an online service to someone then taking it away literally the very next day. Also: I have my doubts you'd simply shrug off this site's demise. Wizards' constant defenders seem to spend half their waking hours here. And most of them defending Wizards and not even bloody well playing the game.
Only time will tell. But I would not have wanted to be Wizards had they not changed course and had found themselves up against the Digital Services Act and particularly where it concerns consumer/user rights when it comes to online marketplaces.
Doubt if you wish. I lost more when the 4th Ed subscription service died than I will lose here for another few years of buying services. These things happen. If you think for a moment that I won't be able to find an alternative to D&D Beyond, should it fail, you are kidding yourself. Beyond just happens to be the most easy solution for my needs with the bonus of being "official."
Also, if you only have a vague understanding of EU law, then it would make sense why you are out of your depth and can't fathom the reality. You, of course, are always welcome to research the law and share here what parts you think are relevant.
You completely missed my point. It wasn't about D&D Beyond as a platform on which to play going bye-bye. But these forums. On which Wizards' most loyal appear to spend more time than they do playing. Me I don't care enough to do such research. You are the one who seems to believe Wizards' terms of service and even parts of it that have absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand are infallible and infinite in the eyes of the law. You do it.
At this point, I have to confess that I genuinely want to see what would happen with a class action suit in the US.
That is not to say I would want to participate in such a suit. I'm not one of the big fish that have spent thousands on DnDB products.
Pissing in the wind then. Fair enough.
I'm not terribly interested in doing your argument for you. Especially when it seems you are not even sure what you are arguing.
For those that come later, do be sure you enter into online purchases either assuming you are trading money for access to ephemeral materials or take the time to read and understand the TOS associated before purchase. Either option will save you spending a few forum pages sounding silly.
You are playing a game of semantics. It is not about the "materials" or how ephemeral they are.
How many times do you need to have it explained it you that it is about the service people have paid for and that ONE DAY before they were going to remove that service from customers they were still selling it to them ?
The wording in that purchase is that customers have access to the content in the book they are buying and do so in the tookit.
You cannot say that ONE DAY before taking away that very same access to that very same content. That is so grossly corrupt it would not have held up in court. No matter how much empty rhetoric is in the terms of service about how you don't "own" those materials. Instead of sounding like a disciple of some rampant pro-capitalist con use what pulses between your ears and think about it.
Look friend, it feels like you just want to be mad and you want to gripe about a perceived wrong (which is fine). If you don't understand why the service you are being mad about is the way it is, I'd again, suggest you actual take the time to understand the service you are spending money on and see why it is maybe not the service you had wanted.
If you are unhappy, you can always ask for a refund and use a different service. If you find the company to be in breach of their responsibilities above, you are welcome to make the point in court. As it stands, the idea that a company would sell access to a digital toolkit and actually update it as needed is not an uncommon or scandalous prospect. I have a hard time expecting a court of law to show favor to your argument that you or others were irreparably harmed because you bought something that you didn't understand, then chose not to ask for a refund and seek service elsewhere.
Again, not my first rodeo with WotC and their digital offerings. The service isn't great, the tools are passable, and the pricing structure could be better for the consumer. But I know what I am dealing with and harbor no illusions when it comes to digital offerings of any kind. We live in a world where app gacha games can announce their launch and their impending closure at the top and bottom of the same announcement post and reap millions from whales who didn't bother to read past the cute wifu art. Educate yourselves when it comes to digital purchases of any kind or accept that you are just renting time and hope the experience you want is paid for equitably.
Unbelievable. The thread is "Turning off, or disabling, 2024 content", and it devolved into an argument about the finer points of contract law in Europe.
I guess I don't understand why people get offended when someone simply asks for a choice. Early on in this thread, there was this:
Well, I'm one of those "whales". I spent a ton of money on the "Big Ol' Studmuffin" package about five years ago when they had a sale and got access to every single source available at the time. I pre-ordered everything they released, got all the dice, etc. because I kind of treated it like an extension of my physical collection which includes all of the alternate cover editions of all of the 5e books. This doesn't make me special, although it probably reveals some sort of mental health issue.
I just started a game where two players are new and the other four haven't touched D&D in 20+ years. We had our Session Zero and I had everyone create an account so I could share source material from here and showed them how easy it was to track the game in the app. We had our first real session the day after the new material dropped.
Suddenly, they can't look up spells because they get a message that says "Can't find what you're looking for? Go to the marketplace.". Other searches result in things that a) don't exist, or b) are different from what they thought they knew.
Mid-session is not the time to teach new players about filters, legacy tags, etc. I know that's just rotten timing and not some intentional thing on WotC's part, but it does illustrate the problem.
I've canceled my subscription and for the reason why, I told them I'd come back if they add a toggle for 2014/2024/Both or if they gave us a way to put a global filter on our account so we don't have to select sources every single time we do a search. I fully expect this to not matter at all to them as it's only $50-ish per year, but it felt like the best decision for me.
If they want new book sales, then they should put out content that people want. They probably did that because this was supposed to be player-driven. However, if they want to maintain the revenue stream from the DDB site, then they should give subscribers what they want. An unhappy subscriber is very unlikely to purchase new content anyway, so not giving us what we want isn't going to somehow increase content sales.
While I won't argue that the current situation makes it easy to use the 2014 content exclusively, I believe that most of the people who are complaining just didn't actually scroll down far enough when they chose their character class when building their character. I am not super familiar with the D&D Beyond character creator (as I have made most of my characters on Roll20, essentially by hand), but I had already made up 2-3 characters here before made a Creation Bard for a new 2014 campaign. Originally I just picked the first "Bard" that came up on the list of classes, and then saw that I was getting the 2024 features. I had to toss that attempt out and scroll down a bit further to the "Legacy Bard" character class, and then everything stayed within the 2014 parameters for the most part. I think there might have been a few times when I had to make sure that I picked the Legacy spell when I was choosing them, but I have had no issues otherwise.
So, to sum up, a toggle would be easier, but if you just make sure to scroll down and pick a Legacy class when making a character, I think 99% of the problems people are grousing about here would be solved.
What's absolutely infuriating to me is that I no longer have access to content that I've already paid for. All the 2014 PHB, DMG etc content that I've paid for no longer appears when I want to create a new character.
I would tolerate this 2024 vs Legacy garbage if they'd still allow me access to my previous content, but they haven't. I can't use my "Legacy" PHB rules (and classes/subclasses/etc) at all, I'm limited to the handful of classes available and even smaller subset of sub-classes for character creation.
I was willing to work with them until this, now I'm just pissed off.
<sigh>
As has been noted a thousand times on this board. All of the 2014 content is still there. When choosing your class scroll further down for the 2014 legacy classes.
*sigh*
Okay. I’ll own that. I missed it. Though in counterpoint it so many people are missing it, perhaps it’s a design/layout issue?
I’m predisposed to want to stick it out. I have since the early ‘80s. The annoyance factor is high.
It is there, and they have done a great job of making it very difficult for users or it would not have been noted "a thousand times on this board"
THe passive aggressive nature of this punishment is not something people would expect from a company like wizbro, they remind me of a middle school DM that had the books, and threw a fit if someone didn't play the way they wanted. It is looking like it is time to do the same thing we did back then go get our own books (switch to a better company) and play without them.
The level of pettiness from wizbro is stupefying!
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Yeah, as a tool to build characters the very first question should be 2014 or 2024 ruleset? From there the options follow the path chosen.
This is a very clunky rollout of an update to a whole lot of stuff that could be implemented far better.
Perhaps it’s time to remember that the original plan was for 2014/Legacy content to be completely unavailable for the online character sheet? So far, everything I have to do to use it is very manageable: scroll a little further down in dropdowns, make sure my spells have legacy tags, check the ones that don’t for 2014 eligibility, and ignore the extraneous tooltips that crop up in a couple of places. This is about a billion times better than being unable to use the online character sheet for any legacy content at all.
What we have now is a compromise and quite a serviceable one, IMHO. I mean, something has got to be first in a dropdown menu and something has to be last. It’s no one’s problem to solve but your own if you don’t look at the entirety of the options. This isn’t a matter of we got a crap thing and we’d better be grateful for it, it’s a case where they listened and responded to the customer base but people still refuse to ackowledge or appreciate the massive course change made to accommodate us because they didn’t get exactly, precisely what they wanted.