So, I see on Facebook that the Kickstarter for the OrcPub app has been cancelled, and he's shutting down the orcpub and orcpub2 websites. Apparently due to "legal issues", which one has to assume was a C&D from Wizards given his sites openly shared all the IP content. Naturally, the haters blame DDB for this, as THEY of course are obviously behind it, and did it just to squash the competition. Illegal is illegal, so it should have come as no surprise, IMO.
In any case, I do see a lot of people here have characters linked there for games in the PbP forum, so due warning that you'll be losing those shortly. All the more reason for DDB to get the ability for us to share/link to a view-only page for our characters here functional sooner rather than later. :)
Honestly I wouldn't have been surprised if they left Orcpub alone, but once he launched that Kickstarter, I think it was the beginning of the end. A monthly Pateron is one thing, but asking for that much money for Wizard's IP is like throwing it in their face. Plus there's that whole, 'You have to defend your IP or lose it' thing.
It's a shame to see it close down, competition only brings out the best in both platforms. Best of luck to the dev in his future endeavors. Hosting and maintaining a project like that isn't easy or cheep.
Yeah, a lot of people were trying to insist that it was legal despite it's violation of the OGL and that really didn't hold water. I wonder if DND Beyond will gain some extra popularity since people can't just emulate it's functions through piracy anymore.
Just reading up on that website... I'm a bit surprised they didn't get a cease and desist sooner. That's some pretty serious plagiarization/copyright infringement. Rather ballsy to then try and make money off of it through Patreon and Kickstarter.
Not surprising. OrcPub filled a void when Wizards did not have an alternative product and they shut him down once he became competition. It will be interesting to see if they go after other services as the toolset in DnD insider continues to grow and expand.
You don't have to defend copyright to keep it, you're thinking of trademark.
Wizards left them alone until they started that fundraiser.
That is true regarding the difference in legal requirements of defending trademark. Of course, it's common in the case of D&D tools like OrcPub to infringe upon both copyright (using someone else's written work for your own without permission) and trademark (using names like Mordenkainen, Tenser, Slaad, and Beholder) when the maker(s) decide to go beyond what Wizards of the Coast makes freely available.
And yeah, bringing money into the equation was the opposite of a good plan, since that involves drawing greater attention to the thing which Wizard of the Coast might not have otherwise been aware was infringing upon their properties.
Thanks for the heads-up. I just exported and download the 3 characters I had on there, including hand copying and pasting their "notes" which for some reason was not included in the character sheets. I really do agree that being able to direct-link your character here on DnDB is a feature that's needed. It's hard to share character sheets easily without that. Even a place to host Character Sheet PDF's would be a decent stopgap.
It's too bad they're getting shut down. If they'd just stuck to SRD content, and not been so ambitious with money, I think they might have been left alone. Even just the SRD stuff would've been good enough for me.
I wish the character export here had the information that was being exported on OrcPub. I like having some of the descriptions for the skills etc printed on the character sheet instead of just the ability/skill name. Probably need to supply it as a feature request here. Maybe as an optional "checkbox" on the export for verbose output. Doesn't need to be too crazy. Just a small summary would be nice. Kind of what the OrcPub print did.
I wish the character export here had the information that was being exported on OrcPub. I like having some of the descriptions for the skills etc printed on the character sheet instead of just the ability/skill name. Probably need to supply it as a feature request here. Maybe as an optional "checkbox" on the export for verbose output. Doesn't need to be too crazy. Just a small summary would be nice. Kind of what the OrcPub print did.
Sounds like a nice idea!
There's a couple of years difference in the amount of time put into the site, but I can assure you that D&D Beyond not only aspires to be the best Digital Source for D&D, but will absolutely get there and surpass that goal. :)
It is too bad D&DB sucks and they expect you to pay twice for things you already have.
No it doesn't suck, and no they don't expect you to pay twice for things you already have.
It kicks ass because it's one of very few legal options that do what it does, and they only ask for a single payment - a really low one, comparatively to other legal options - for a thing which most folks saying "I already have that" don't already have since digital tools and books are different, and it's almost never people that paid for another digital toolset complaining that they are being asked to pay again (I presume because they are either happy with the digital tool they already bought, or they place appropriate value on 'everything a person could possibly want to play to this game' even when that is delivered digitally rather than on paper).
OK sure I'll play. So if I buy the new book, am I going to get all the options to use on here ? No I will have to pay a separate fee for it here, and if I want to carry it around easily in .PDF format that is yet another fee. When the books cost $50 s pop and have pages start falling out after 3 months I don't think I am getting a good deal. I have 1e AD&D books that are still in great condition that I payed half as much for. Even granting for inflation the gaming industry has gotten way to expensive they just assume we all have butt tons of money to spend but most of us do not.
OK sure I'll play. So if I buy the new book, am I going to get all the options to use on here ? No I will have to pay a separate fee for it here, and if I want to carry it around easily in .PDF format that is yet another fee. When the books cost $50 s pop and have pages start falling out after 3 months I don't think I am getting a good deal. I have 1e AD&D books that are still in great condition that I payed half as much for. Even granting for inflation the gaming industry has gotten way to expensive they just assume we all have butt tons of money to spend but most of us do not.
If you pay for the books, you get the books. If you pay for the D&D Beyond content, you get that content.
If your pages start falling out, by the way, contact WotC and they'll replace it.
Have fun in your search for a hobby that costs less than $200.
OK sure I'll play. So if I buy the new book, am I going to get all the options to use on here ? No I will have to pay a separate fee for it here, and if I want to carry it around easily in .PDF format that is yet another fee. When the books cost $50 s pop and have pages start falling out after 3 months I don't think I am getting a good deal. I have 1e AD&D books that are still in great condition that I payed half as much for. Even granting for inflation the gaming industry has gotten way to expensive they just assume we all have butt tons of money to spend but most of us do not.
You really should do a search of the existing forum threads before spouting off about having to "pay twice". This has literally been addressed so many times that some users have added it to their signatures, and the mods have a drinking game.
WotC does not own D&D Beyond. D&D Beyond is owned by Twitch. D&D Beyond (Twitch) has a license from WotC to make a digital version of the books, just like ROll20 and Fantasy Grounds. DDB is not going to pay WotC money to give you something for free. That is a very bad business decision. WotC can't give you free copies of DDB content, because WotC is not DDB.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
OK sure I'll play. So if I buy the new book, am I going to get all the options to use on here ?
If you buy it on here, then yes. If you buy it somewhere else... well, if you pay for a cheeseburger at McDonald's, does Burger King give you a cheeseburger you don't have to pay for?
...if I want to carry it around easily in .PDF format that is yet another fee.
If you buy it on here, there really isn't much need for a .PDF (which are not a thing for current edition material that sees physical print other than print-on-demand, so I'm assuming you are talking about the D&D Reader version rather than illegal PDFs). But at the same time, you don't get a Vita version of a game for free just because you bought it on PlayStation.
I have 1e AD&D books that are still in great condition that I payed half as much for. Even granting for inflation...
Depending on when you bought them, that's not true. The $49.95 most D&D books cost now translates to $13.20 (that's actually $49.97) in 1978 money.
And there are other major differences, like the AD&D books having very little color to them and the modern books being full-color. Oh, and let's not forget that the AD&D PHB is 128 pages, while the modern PHB is 320 pages - so we should really be looking at the price-per-page rather than just the price, and if we do that, the AD&D PHB is $0.2958 current value of the dollar per page if it cost $10 in 1978, while the modern PHB is only $0.1561 per page.
...the gaming industry has gotten way to expensive they just assume we all have butt tons of money to spend but most of us do not.
That's false. The gaming industry has always been expensive... and there is this wonderful little acknowledgement made now that was not made back-in-the-day that some of us don't have "butt tons of money to spend"; WotC gives away D&D 5th edition for free, you only have to pay if you want extras like more races, classes, character customization, and monsters, or you want someone to write adventures for you, or you want game aids like a DM screen or a fancy character sheet.
WotC does not own D&D Beyond. D&D Beyond is owned by Twitch. D&D Beyond (Twitch) has a license from WotC to make a digital version of the books, just like ROll20 and Fantasy Grounds. DDB is not going to pay WotC money to give you something for free. That is a very bad business decision. WotC can't give you free copies of DDB content, because WotC is not DDB.
I thought D&D Beyond was just powered by Twitch/curse, it's still an official WoTC product. This is a massively huge difference. I also can't find any info online (granted I only looked for 2 minutes) saying that D&D beyond was owned by Twitch.
WotC does not own D&D Beyond. D&D Beyond is owned by Twitch. D&D Beyond (Twitch) has a license from WotC to make a digital version of the books, just like ROll20 and Fantasy Grounds. DDB is not going to pay WotC money to give you something for free. That is a very bad business decision. WotC can't give you free copies of DDB content, because WotC is not DDB.
I thought D&D Beyond was just powered by Twitch/curse, it's still an official WoTC product. This is a massively huge difference. I also can't find any info online (granted I only looked for 2 minutes) saying that D&D beyond was owned by Twitch.
A cursory search of these forums will tell you all you need to know. D&D Beyond is an officially licensed product. D&D Beyond is made and owned by Twitch (which is why you need a Twitch account to use it). They pay a license fee to WotC to use their content and branding beyond what is freely available from WotC to anyone. This is no different from the licenses that Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds pay to WotC to have official content on their sites, like the full PHB, MM and adventures. This is also why OrcPub died, because he didn't (or couldn't) negotiate a license with WotC, and was using their non-free IP content without permission.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
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So, I see on Facebook that the Kickstarter for the OrcPub app has been cancelled, and he's shutting down the orcpub and orcpub2 websites. Apparently due to "legal issues", which one has to assume was a C&D from Wizards given his sites openly shared all the IP content. Naturally, the haters blame DDB for this, as THEY of course are obviously behind it, and did it just to squash the competition. Illegal is illegal, so it should have come as no surprise, IMO.
In any case, I do see a lot of people here have characters linked there for games in the PbP forum, so due warning that you'll be losing those shortly. All the more reason for DDB to get the ability for us to share/link to a view-only page for our characters here functional sooner rather than later. :)
Honestly I wouldn't have been surprised if they left Orcpub alone, but once he launched that Kickstarter, I think it was the beginning of the end. A monthly Pateron is one thing, but asking for that much money for Wizard's IP is like throwing it in their face. Plus there's that whole, 'You have to defend your IP or lose it' thing.
It's a shame to see it close down, competition only brings out the best in both platforms. Best of luck to the dev in his future endeavors. Hosting and maintaining a project like that isn't easy or cheep.
Yeah, a lot of people were trying to insist that it was legal despite it's violation of the OGL and that really didn't hold water. I wonder if DND Beyond will gain some extra popularity since people can't just emulate it's functions through piracy anymore.
Just reading up on that website... I'm a bit surprised they didn't get a cease and desist sooner. That's some pretty serious plagiarization/copyright infringement. Rather ballsy to then try and make money off of it through Patreon and Kickstarter.
Not surprising. OrcPub filled a void when Wizards did not have an alternative product and they shut him down once he became competition. It will be interesting to see if they go after other services as the toolset in DnD insider continues to grow and expand.
You don't have to defend copyright to keep it, you're thinking of trademark.
Wizards left them alone until they started that fundraiser.
That is true regarding the difference in legal requirements of defending trademark. Of course, it's common in the case of D&D tools like OrcPub to infringe upon both copyright (using someone else's written work for your own without permission) and trademark (using names like Mordenkainen, Tenser, Slaad, and Beholder) when the maker(s) decide to go beyond what Wizards of the Coast makes freely available.
And yeah, bringing money into the equation was the opposite of a good plan, since that involves drawing greater attention to the thing which Wizard of the Coast might not have otherwise been aware was infringing upon their properties.
Thanks for the heads-up. I just exported and download the 3 characters I had on there, including hand copying and pasting their "notes" which for some reason was not included in the character sheets. I really do agree that being able to direct-link your character here on DnDB is a feature that's needed. It's hard to share character sheets easily without that. Even a place to host Character Sheet PDF's would be a decent stopgap.
It's too bad they're getting shut down. If they'd just stuck to SRD content, and not been so ambitious with money, I think they might have been left alone. Even just the SRD stuff would've been good enough for me.
I wish the character export here had the information that was being exported on OrcPub. I like having some of the descriptions for the skills etc printed on the character sheet instead of just the ability/skill name. Probably need to supply it as a feature request here. Maybe as an optional "checkbox" on the export for verbose output. Doesn't need to be too crazy. Just a small summary would be nice. Kind of what the OrcPub print did.
Pun-loving nerd | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
It is too bad D&DB sucks and they expect you to pay twice for things you already have.
OK sure I'll play. So if I buy the new book, am I going to get all the options to use on here ? No I will have to pay a separate fee for it here, and if I want to carry it around easily in .PDF format that is yet another fee. When the books cost $50 s pop and have pages start falling out after 3 months I don't think I am getting a good deal. I have 1e AD&D books that are still in great condition that I payed half as much for. Even granting for inflation the gaming industry has gotten way to expensive they just assume we all have butt tons of money to spend but most of us do not.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Tooltips (Help/aid)
Ok everyone, this is heading in the direction where people might start directing personal insults at each other.
Please feel free to continue to debate the topic, but keep calm when doing so and don't attack any other users.
thanks
Pun-loving nerd | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?
If you buy it on here, then yes. If you buy it somewhere else... well, if you pay for a cheeseburger at McDonald's, does Burger King give you a cheeseburger you don't have to pay for?
If you buy it on here, there really isn't much need for a .PDF (which are not a thing for current edition material that sees physical print other than print-on-demand, so I'm assuming you are talking about the D&D Reader version rather than illegal PDFs). But at the same time, you don't get a Vita version of a game for free just because you bought it on PlayStation.And there are other major differences, like the AD&D books having very little color to them and the modern books being full-color. Oh, and let's not forget that the AD&D PHB is 128 pages, while the modern PHB is 320 pages - so we should really be looking at the price-per-page rather than just the price, and if we do that, the AD&D PHB is $0.2958 current value of the dollar per page if it cost $10 in 1978, while the modern PHB is only $0.1561 per page.
That's false. The gaming industry has always been expensive... and there is this wonderful little acknowledgement made now that was not made back-in-the-day that some of us don't have "butt tons of money to spend"; WotC gives away D&D 5th edition for free, you only have to pay if you want extras like more races, classes, character customization, and monsters, or you want someone to write adventures for you, or you want game aids like a DM screen or a fancy character sheet.You don't OWN your books on DDB: WotC can change them any time. What do you think will happen when OneD&D comes out?