Really wish this wasn't happening, as it's the only way some people have access to new things. Not everyone has the money to buy a new book every few months, let alone a book that you'll never actually hold. Incredibly disappointed in this decision, as your UA content has been some of the funnest that I've actually had the pleasure of using on your platform. And while containers are nice, I think I can speak for a lot of people when I say we would rather have more options in the game itself instead of functionality on a character sheet that can easily be found elsewhere.
I appreciate the financial position you're in, but can you consider the position of those who actually do buy the books (providing actual revenue for the company) and then have to wait for years for some of the content to make it into the tools?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
As someone in an extremely tight financial situation with almost zero disposable income, but whom has a basic-tier subscription and is likely to update to a master-tier...
This doesn't feel to me like something that needs arguing over finances. Yes, you need to appeal to your customer base - with an emphasis on the paying clientele - but you need to appeal, also, to those whom might become paying clientele in the future. A business must always consider attracting new customers as well as their current customers. And, personally, this maneuver feels like one that is likely to drive away some new customers. It might attract others, however, those who are more interested in the various functions of the site over UA content.
That said, there are some content things that really do need to be put into action. Some RAW things - epic boons, for example. I've already made them all as homebrew feats, but that took a couple hours of my own time for a RAW feature that should already be an option, even if post-20 play/high level play is rare.
I can see how polarizing this move is. My personal opinion is that it's not worth the bad feedback to drop, and that you should, with the income you're generating, hire a new person who strictly handles UA implementation. I severely doubt that there isn't room in the budget for this, with how big DDB has become. But I'm not part of the financial committee, so whatever. Ultimately, I have no control over the decision, I can only whine about it.
They don’t need to hire anyone. I volunteered to create any UA possible in the homebrewer. The thing is, if it’s already possible to create it isn’t a big deal anyway. The problem is trying to force functionality to implement new features just for UA is probably messing with their schedule to implement existing features that are missing. (Especially when it might be ultimately worthless if it gets dropped.) But the faster they can create the means to do everything, the sooner they might possibly be willing and able to support UA again in future. I’m choosing to look at it as a pin in it until later.
But I got Magic items I can’t make because I can’t put Actions and Charges on the same thing to have it track two things two ways. The sooner they add Actions to Magic Items, the faster the tentacle rod, circlet of blasting and others can work correctly. So that’s both already RAW compliance, and it’s Homebrew improvement, two-for-one/bogo/double value for both DDB, and their customers, all for fixing one thing. And if that’s getting bumped because they gotta keep jumping on UA, I’d rather the bogo/two-fer.
Not to mention they catch a ton of flack over the UA anyway. So stopping those complaints makes it a three-for-one. Any business looking at their load, realize they have something they never needed to do, and it does nothing but cost money, cause delays, and generate complaints, and it’s preventing them from getting to what they actually get paid to do, and they don’t decide the juice isn’t worth the squeeze…. That’s a doomed business model. If it generates complaints and costs pennies but is perceived as “added value,” sure. But when it is legitimately lowering the value of their product because of the delays it causes…? *snip, snip* Am I bummed? Yeah. Can I fault them? Not one iota.
Edit: I'm only referring to the fact that users can't publish UA for each other.
Honestly this sucks majorly. RAI this is so that you don't share published content or something someone else made and take credit for it.
If D&D Beyond team doesn't have time/resources to work on UA that's perfectly fine but why not make it easier for us to add it ourselves? There could quite easily be an exception to this rule specifically for UA content only, and each one can be removed from public listing if it gets published.
D&D Beyond team, please consider allowing UA homebrew entries to be shared.
As someone in an extremely tight financial situation with almost zero disposable income, but whom has a basic-tier subscription and is likely to update to a master-tier...
This doesn't feel to me like something that needs arguing over finances. Yes, you need to appeal to your customer base - with an emphasis on the paying clientele - but you need to appeal, also, to those whom might become paying clientele in the future. A business must always consider attracting new customers as well as their current customers. And, personally, this maneuver feels like one that is likely to drive away some new customers. It might attract others, however, those who are more interested in the various functions of the site over UA content.
That said, there are some content things that really do need to be put into action. Some RAW things - epic boons, for example. I've already made them all as homebrew feats, but that took a couple hours of my own time for a RAW feature that should already be an option, even if post-20 play/high level play is rare.
I can see how polarizing this move is. My personal opinion is that it's not worth the bad feedback to drop, and that you should, with the income you're generating, hire a new person who strictly handles UA implementation. I severely doubt that there isn't room in the budget for this, with how big DDB has become. But I'm not part of the financial committee, so whatever. Ultimately, I have no control over the decision, I can only whine about it.
Well said. hire a person or persons to implement the UA while the main staff keeps on keeping on. Unless there is a contract or license issue that we do not know about. I am sure there is an app dev person looking for work that would happily satisfy those that were angered by this move.
That said lets get the Sidekicks and patrons going then, now there are no excuses...
I'm less upset by this decision than the dishonest reasons given in this announcement.
As a software developer, I can't imagine that pushing a bit of text data into a system that has been working fine for years is really a big dev time sink. The act of archiving the content already up there will take more developer time than leaving it available. The fact that the data will still remain in the system for characters already using it means you're really just turning off access to data that will still be on your servers.
This is a store decision, not a development labor or technology decision. Perhaps you're thinking that people will buy the books more if they don't have access to UA content?
I'm a video game developer and have nothing against game companies trying to make more money, but have enough respect for your customers to be honest about it.
I can't imagine that pushing a bit of text data into a system that has been working fine for years is really a big dev time sink.
It's very often entirely new mechanical features (like the Strixhaven UA that had cross-class subclasses and what have you). Very much not "just text".
I'm less upset by this decision than the dishonest reasons given in this announcement.
As a software developer, I can't imagine that pushing a bit of text data into a system that has been working fine for years is really a big dev time sink. The act of archiving the content already up there will take more developer time than leaving it available. The fact that the data will still remain in the system for characters already using it means you're really just turning off access to data that will still be on your servers.
This is a store decision, not a development labor or technology decision. Perhaps you're thinking that people will buy the books more if they don't have access to UA content?
I'm a video game developer and have nothing against game companies trying to make more money, but have enough respect for your customers to be honest about it.
DDB is required to archive UA content when it leaves playtest because WotC says so.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Understandable, though sad. Is there a chance of UA content returning sometime down the line if the team has already covered higher priority developments?
Understandable, though sad. Is there a chance of UA content returning sometime down the line if the team has already covered higher priority developments?
It's good that this will free up resources to improve other parts of Beyond. For example, the suggested Homebrew tools, which are still extremely cumbersome and incomplete.
Really wish this wasn't happening, as it's the only way some people have access to new things. Not everyone has the money to buy a new book every few months, let alone a book that you'll never actually hold. Incredibly disappointed in this decision, as your UA content has been some of the funnest that I've actually had the pleasure of using on your platform. And while containers are nice, I think I can speak for a lot of people when I say we would rather have more options in the game itself instead of functionality on a character sheet that can easily be found elsewhere.
I appreciate the financial position you're in, but can you consider the position of those who actually do buy the books (providing actual revenue for the company) and then have to wait for years for some of the content to make it into the tools?
Just to add on to this, while not everyone has pockets full of money, most businesses do not have that kind of money either. People often only think about themselves, but they do not think about the financial situation of businesses, let alone care or give a damn about the people working in them. No one is paying Beyond to implement UA, so there is no incentive for them to implement it. If people themselves are not willing to work for free to implement it themselves, then why should they expect Beyond to do so?
I do not think it is a good idea to outsource this work to outside volunteers either. Some UA implementation simply cannot be outsourced, as implementing certain features is beyond the scope of the current homebrew tools. And for the UA that can be outsourced and implemented by the current homebrew tools, you still need somebody internally to review the work, give approval, implement it, and so on; since Beyond still needs to pay somebody to do all that, they might as well just skip it entirely and not bother at all.
As someone who has bought almost everything, while I do want Beyond to keep working on UA even if it means slower implementation of published content, I think I am in the minority. I think most paying customers prefer Beyond to focus on implementing published content than play test content.
If people really want to see UA content on Beyond and other digital tools, their best bet is to petition Wizards to allow these companies to monetize UA. UA might not be free anymore on digital tool sites, but at least UA might continue to exist and may give businesses enough financial incentive to implement them. It also gives Wizards and digital tool companies further incentive to bring archived UA back, and to take it a step further, people can also pay to have access to un-errata'd content, like the old Bladesinger for example.
Saying that no one is paying them for UA is at least slightly false if not wholly mainly because I and many others pay a subscription that I would assume go's to paying for many things on this site such as UA. And as far as monetizing UA they have done that before with the eberon content and it did not go well.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
Saying that no one is paying them for UA is at least slightly false if not wholly mainly because I and many others pay a subscription that I would assume go's to paying for many things on this site such as UA. And as far as monetizing UA they have done that before with the eberon content and it did not go well.
Subscription has no bearing on UA content. UA is available for free regardless of whether you paid anything or not. It is like saying I am buying stuff from Walmart so they can stay in business to keep their restrooms available for public use. Maybe there are a few people who bought subscription because they want to support Beyond's work with UA, but I think those are a tiny minority.
WGTE was poorly handled. WGTE showed that monetizing UA is possible, and plenty of people bought it. If I were Wizards, how I would have handled it would be to let everyone who bought WGTE before its official final publication to keep the UA version, and anyone who bought WGTE after the final publication can spend more money to purchase the UA version.
Subscriptions go to supporting the site in general that means everything on the site UA included and plenty of people bought WGTE because we (myself included) thought it was official content not UA and when we found out otherwise people demanded refunds and received said refunds. Monetizing UA would not be a sound business decision because by monetizing it less people will try it out simply because they don't want to pay for it. Which defeats the whole point of UA, that being getting as many people to try it out inorder to find out just how broken it is. And to receive ideas on how to fix it. Which is essentially an alpha/beta testing group they don't have to pay.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
Subscriptions go to supporting the site in general that means everything on the site UA included and plenty of people bought WGTE because we (myself included) thought it was official content not UA and when we found out otherwise people demanded refunds and received said refunds. Monetizing UA would not be a sound business decision because by monetizing it less people will try it out simply because they don't want to pay for it. Which defeats the whole point of UA, that being getting as many people to try it out inorder to find out just how broken it is. And to receive ideas on how to fix it. Which is essentially an alpha/beta testing group they don't have to pay.
If I remember correctly, from what I read in the forums, the vast majority of people had beef with the way WGTE was handled because it was errata'd/finalized and people did not have the option to keep it un-errata'd. And since getting ERFTLW unlocks most things in WGTE anyways, there is not any point in keeping WGTE, hence the refunds.
In case I was not clear on monetizing UA, in this context, I am refering to Beyond monetizing the integration of UA with the digital tools. Wizards can still release UA as free PDFs, but if you want it on Beyond's digital tools (character sheet options, database, etc.), then people will have to pay Beyond to have access to UA in the digital tools. And if Beyond wants to charge the compendium content of UA too, I am personally fine with that too.
I'd like to see a single player who would choose features like "containers" that mean nothing over access to UA content.
Ridiculous priorities.
If you just skimmed through the last six pages, most people rather have core features like containers over UA. I rather have UA over quick implementions of containers too, but I would not call them ridiculous just because they have different priorities than I do.
I appreciate the financial position you're in, but can you consider the position of those who actually do buy the books (providing actual revenue for the company) and then have to wait for years for some of the content to make it into the tools?
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
As someone in an extremely tight financial situation with almost zero disposable income, but whom has a basic-tier subscription and is likely to update to a master-tier...
This doesn't feel to me like something that needs arguing over finances. Yes, you need to appeal to your customer base - with an emphasis on the paying clientele - but you need to appeal, also, to those whom might become paying clientele in the future. A business must always consider attracting new customers as well as their current customers. And, personally, this maneuver feels like one that is likely to drive away some new customers. It might attract others, however, those who are more interested in the various functions of the site over UA content.
That said, there are some content things that really do need to be put into action. Some RAW things - epic boons, for example. I've already made them all as homebrew feats, but that took a couple hours of my own time for a RAW feature that should already be an option, even if post-20 play/high level play is rare.
I can see how polarizing this move is. My personal opinion is that it's not worth the bad feedback to drop, and that you should, with the income you're generating, hire a new person who strictly handles UA implementation. I severely doubt that there isn't room in the budget for this, with how big DDB has become. But I'm not part of the financial committee, so whatever. Ultimately, I have no control over the decision, I can only whine about it.
They don’t need to hire anyone. I volunteered to create any UA possible in the homebrewer. The thing is, if it’s already possible to create it isn’t a big deal anyway. The problem is trying to force functionality to implement new features just for UA is probably messing with their schedule to implement existing features that are missing. (Especially when it might be ultimately worthless if it gets dropped.) But the faster they can create the means to do everything, the sooner they might possibly be willing and able to support UA again in future. I’m choosing to look at it as a pin in it until later.
But I got Magic items I can’t make because I can’t put Actions and Charges on the same thing to have it track two things two ways. The sooner they add Actions to Magic Items, the faster the tentacle rod, circlet of blasting and others can work correctly. So that’s both already RAW compliance, and it’s Homebrew improvement, two-for-one/bogo/double value for both DDB, and their customers, all for fixing one thing. And if that’s getting bumped because they gotta keep jumping on UA, I’d rather the bogo/two-fer.
Not to mention they catch a ton of flack over the UA anyway. So stopping those complaints makes it a three-for-one. Any business looking at their load, realize they have something they never needed to do, and it does nothing but cost money, cause delays, and generate complaints, and it’s preventing them from getting to what they actually get paid to do, and they don’t decide the juice isn’t worth the squeeze…. That’s a doomed business model. If it generates complaints and costs pennies but is perceived as “added value,” sure. But when it is legitimately lowering the value of their product because of the delays it causes…? *snip, snip* Am I bummed? Yeah. Can I fault them? Not one iota.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Edit: I'm only referring to the fact that users can't publish UA for each other.
Honestly this sucks majorly. RAI this is so that you don't share published content or something someone else made and take credit for it.
If D&D Beyond team doesn't have time/resources to work on UA that's perfectly fine but why not make it easier for us to add it ourselves? There could quite easily be an exception to this rule specifically for UA content only, and each one can be removed from public listing if it gets published.
D&D Beyond team, please consider allowing UA homebrew entries to be shared.
Well said. hire a person or persons to implement the UA while the main staff keeps on keeping on. Unless there is a contract or license issue that we do not know about. I am sure there is an app dev person looking for work that would happily satisfy those that were angered by this move.
That said lets get the Sidekicks and patrons going then, now there are no excuses...
I'm less upset by this decision than the dishonest reasons given in this announcement.
As a software developer, I can't imagine that pushing a bit of text data into a system that has been working fine for years is really a big dev time sink. The act of archiving the content already up there will take more developer time than leaving it available. The fact that the data will still remain in the system for characters already using it means you're really just turning off access to data that will still be on your servers.
This is a store decision, not a development labor or technology decision. Perhaps you're thinking that people will buy the books more if they don't have access to UA content?
I'm a video game developer and have nothing against game companies trying to make more money, but have enough respect for your customers to be honest about it.
It's very often entirely new mechanical features (like the Strixhaven UA that had cross-class subclasses and what have you). Very much not "just text".
DDB is required to archive UA content when it leaves playtest because WotC says so.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Understandable, though sad. Is there a chance of UA content returning sometime down the line if the team has already covered higher priority developments?
There’s always a chance.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
It's good that this will free up resources to improve other parts of Beyond. For example, the suggested Homebrew tools, which are still extremely cumbersome and incomplete.
All generalizations are false.
Just to add on to this, while not everyone has pockets full of money, most businesses do not have that kind of money either. People often only think about themselves, but they do not think about the financial situation of businesses, let alone care or give a damn about the people working in them. No one is paying Beyond to implement UA, so there is no incentive for them to implement it. If people themselves are not willing to work for free to implement it themselves, then why should they expect Beyond to do so?
I do not think it is a good idea to outsource this work to outside volunteers either. Some UA implementation simply cannot be outsourced, as implementing certain features is beyond the scope of the current homebrew tools. And for the UA that can be outsourced and implemented by the current homebrew tools, you still need somebody internally to review the work, give approval, implement it, and so on; since Beyond still needs to pay somebody to do all that, they might as well just skip it entirely and not bother at all.
As someone who has bought almost everything, while I do want Beyond to keep working on UA even if it means slower implementation of published content, I think I am in the minority. I think most paying customers prefer Beyond to focus on implementing published content than play test content.
If people really want to see UA content on Beyond and other digital tools, their best bet is to petition Wizards to allow these companies to monetize UA. UA might not be free anymore on digital tool sites, but at least UA might continue to exist and may give businesses enough financial incentive to implement them. It also gives Wizards and digital tool companies further incentive to bring archived UA back, and to take it a step further, people can also pay to have access to un-errata'd content, like the old Bladesinger for example.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
Saying that no one is paying them for UA is at least slightly false if not wholly mainly because I and many others pay a subscription that I would assume go's to paying for many things on this site such as UA. And as far as monetizing UA they have done that before with the eberon content and it did not go well.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
Subscription has no bearing on UA content. UA is available for free regardless of whether you paid anything or not. It is like saying I am buying stuff from Walmart so they can stay in business to keep their restrooms available for public use. Maybe there are a few people who bought subscription because they want to support Beyond's work with UA, but I think those are a tiny minority.
WGTE was poorly handled. WGTE showed that monetizing UA is possible, and plenty of people bought it. If I were Wizards, how I would have handled it would be to let everyone who bought WGTE before its official final publication to keep the UA version, and anyone who bought WGTE after the final publication can spend more money to purchase the UA version.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
Subscriptions go to supporting the site in general that means everything on the site UA included and plenty of people bought WGTE because we (myself included) thought it was official content not UA and when we found out otherwise people demanded refunds and received said refunds. Monetizing UA would not be a sound business decision because by monetizing it less people will try it out simply because they don't want to pay for it. Which defeats the whole point of UA, that being getting as many people to try it out inorder to find out just how broken it is. And to receive ideas on how to fix it. Which is essentially an alpha/beta testing group they don't have to pay.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
I'd like to see a single player who would choose features like "containers" that mean nothing over access to UA content.
Ridiculous priorities.
To be fair it is something that's been asked for since damn near the begining. That being said would I rather have containers than UA hell no.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
If I remember correctly, from what I read in the forums, the vast majority of people had beef with the way WGTE was handled because it was errata'd/finalized and people did not have the option to keep it un-errata'd. And since getting ERFTLW unlocks most things in WGTE anyways, there is not any point in keeping WGTE, hence the refunds.
In case I was not clear on monetizing UA, in this context, I am refering to Beyond monetizing the integration of UA with the digital tools. Wizards can still release UA as free PDFs, but if you want it on Beyond's digital tools (character sheet options, database, etc.), then people will have to pay Beyond to have access to UA in the digital tools. And if Beyond wants to charge the compendium content of UA too, I am personally fine with that too.
If you just skimmed through the last six pages, most people rather have core features like containers over UA. I rather have UA over quick implementions of containers too, but I would not call them ridiculous just because they have different priorities than I do.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
well, there goes half my characters... So not fair
Nothing disappears from your characters.
And just make a copy of the stuff you need before it's archived.