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The subscription pricing seems fair enough, but the digital sourcebook pricing is ridiculous. I've diligently bought every source so far and now you're telling me that if I want to use that stuff with my subscription I have to spend more than half the hardcopy price AGAIN!? I've done that already for the Fantasy Grounds content, but that included having all of the information, graphics and text adapted for a vtt. You want me to pay just as much for a glorified encyclopedia?! I've been defending this project to skeptical friends for a while, but I don't think I can do that any more. This pricing structure will be the downfall of yet another WOTC internet fail. I finally have to admit, you guys are exploiting the hell out of us, and I'm not sure I can stomach it anymore. So long and thanks for...well, nothing really. Thanks for nothing.
And here we go again... you do not have to pay for anything. You can enter it by yourself, for free, share it for free, use the tools for free.
But if you want to have the content right away, you pay for it.
Sounds fair to me.
I suspect it is also to deal with the maturity of content. It is impossible to prove the ages of those who sign up, even using a credit card check - since children can raid their parents things. Which leaves adult content in the hands of the campaign. My campaign history is as inappropriate as the actual history of humanity and set in a post apocalyptic bronze age (post iron age as all iron and steel were rendered into ferrous oxide) period.
Second, I cannot quote prices for each piece of content because they do not show up when I search for them. I did a search for D&D Beyond Products Price and got no results showing what the products and prices are. Perhaps that should be rectified immediately. There are not going to be very many products sold if people cannot find the products. Even going to the home page, there is a great deal of pretty pictures, but no pricing table and no menu listing for a pricing table. If I have to ask for the price, then the seller already knows it costs to much. But what I remember is a cost of hundreds of dollars, even buying it all in the opening week. Where I live, that cost is over 20% of the average monthly income of a family of 4. I would suspect that D&D Beyond is close to a coast and doesn't consider the economies of or looks down on the "fly over states". This is nothing new, book publishers and school book publishers do the same thing - and then complain because the "fly over states" who can't afford their products aren't educated. This has been going on for decades as prices are set according to the incomes of those on the coast with no consideration or concern for those between the Rockies and the Appalachians.
I first attempted to program for my needs as a DM when I was 10 years old. The computer I had then allowed for 2 kb of personal program. It didn't work out well. I have been waiting 40 years to see what I need available, affordable, and to be aware of it when I needed it. The digital support for 3.5E didn't come to my attention when it came out, and I couldn't afford it then. I did not like nor ever want to play 4E, whatever support existed for it is irrelevant to this discussion. I didn't like the setting and I didn't like the conversion of console games to paper. I have recently acquired D&D 5E. The books are beautiful, well made, have excellent art work, and only a few flaws. (Such as page numbers that are hard to read, or indices which hard to read because of being printed in 6 pt. fonts (slight exaggeration), and background patterns that lack contrast with some paragraphs.) And I am sure the price difference given above is accurate. However, we are being asked for hundreds of dollars on top of hundreds up front to access temporarily available materials already purchased in permanently available materials raising the cost of content by 40% to 60% plus subscription for convenience. I don't get a CD with a program that can be updated, where I can set the races available, generate new races, add tables which are not in the current descriptions to races for customization, make encounter tables based on my worlds limitations, draw up modules with explanations, notes, & tips for my campaign and dungeon maps, etc., or even make up the "conjuration" tables the DM is supposed to have so players can cast conjuration spells. (Those tables do exist in 1E.)
When The Secret World added content, a complete expansion story line, it costs me $10.00. I purchased that in game content. When Star Trek continuously charged anyplace from $20 to $200 for expansion packs, I refused to pay it. I even pretty much quit playing. This to me looks much more like Star Trek than it does TSW. The question is asked why something with an active life of now until D&D 6.0 should cost us as much as 15% to 100% plus of someone's monthly income (as there are employed minors among targeted consumers of the product) when so far I can't see how the product truly benefits my needs. No one has sold me on the product. No one has proven I should write, and spend hours rewriting, my game content into a system only to lose it when it is no longer supported. No one has even proven to me the product will meet my needs as a DM in my campaign. So, if no one can prove to me why I should buy it at 15% to 100% plus of someone's monthly income plus subscription rates, the real question really is: "How is someone going to do better at sales at what the market will bear?"
This sounds great. One question- I have seen various references to UA classes etc being included in the launch. Can you confirm that the UA classes such as the revised ranger and subclasses such as swashbuckler will be included and accessible on 15th August? Also, how about the various feats, paladin oaths (e.g. Treachery) and warlock patrons that have recently featured, will they be there as well?
Speaking personally, this would be a key driver of my decision to subscribe, as it would be a big added value over and above just using the books and assorted online resources, as is the case today.
Thanks for your reply and also for the hard work that has gone into this project!
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Don't be Lawful Evil
I cannot tell anyone why they should buy content through DDB, but here are the reasons the product interests me.
I want my 5e content available to me 24/7. I want to be able to access it when I am eating lunch at work or when I am at the doctor’s office waiting room or hanging out at the bounce house place that my kid is at birthday party for or whatever.
That's it. That right there is worth me paying for DDB books I already own hard copies of. I have been using my PH, MM, and DMG for nearly three years now. I have gotten my money’s worth out of them and I can keep using them. They were good buys that I don't regret.
Going forward I may or may not buy the hard copies anymore. I just don't see them getting any use with the DDB version available. I prefer to read things electronically these days. So we will see. I still have my pre-orders of ToA and XGtE on Amazon.
So I am very pumped. 23 days to go.
It isn't pointing out "someone's" - I referenced the Average, not the mean, the Average income for an entire county. And the price alone is not the only consideration. The question remains "How is someone going to do better at sales at what the market will bear?"
The response does not answer that question and does not address the many other concerns brought up.
I don't believe it is on anyone to debate Curse's profitability on price points. They set these values at a number of their choosing, and the consumer's choose whether the value is worth it for them. An individual not having the funds to support said price point is going to be a situation that happens. An individual not seeing a value in the product due to purchasing physical content will be another situation. Stating to Curse that their model does not fit one's particular situation is good feedback, but to expect the entire model to change because of such? There is a wide spectrum of situations, which include others who do see value in the model and price point.
The continuous debate in this thread shows that there is heavy interest in the service/product and value observed with the offering. I understand the frustration that the price point may not be tailored to many individuals or be set at a price some want to pay, but it is tailored to the current economic value of the product. If some don't see the value in purchasing the digital renditions of physical books they own - they don't have to. Nobody is forcing or expecting anyone to. For those who desire digital renditions or have not purchased physical media - they may find this a great opportunity for involvement.
Work within your own means and make purchases that you feel have value. Nothing for sale on D&D Beyond is required to continue enjoying the game, only to offer digital enhancement to those who desire such. If this is something you're interested in, awesome! If you'd prefer to continue with physical books and use the expanding toolset available here, that's awesome too.
The format isn't an issue if the format and program work. I just went to create a character. There is only one race available which is available in my campaign, so I used human. The equipment section does not allow assignment of armor or weapons to the armor and weapons slot.
Setting out pricing lists at release does not allow people to prepare for purchase. If they are going to have to save up for purchase, then they need a clear goal for which to save. These are the months where anyone in a snow state prepares for winter, buy purchasing fuel while it is least expensive. An understanding of seasonal costs is part of why markateers release either when survival costs are low or when cash is expected to be released into the economy (such as income tax returns).
Player's Handbook: $29.99, Monster Manual: $29.99, Dungeon Master's Guide: $29.99, Curse of Strahd: $24.99, Hoard of the Dragon Queen: $24.99, Out of the Abyss: $24.99, Princes of the Apocalypse: $24.99, The Rise of Tiamat: $24.99, Storm King's Thunder: $24.99, Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide: $24.99, Tales from the Yawning Portal: $24.99, Tomb of Annihilation: $24.99, Volo's Guide to Monsters: $24.99, & Xanathar's Guide to Everything: $24.99 = $364.86. Apparently if purchased in the first week, this is reduced by a total of $30.00 for a cost of $334.86. And I then I still have to enter all my own content by hand, as well as the classes and materials from my yet to arrive Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting.
Of the costs listed in the OP, the subscription cost is the most reasonable. In fact, better than I would expect generally. I will probably take teh Master Tier, just to provide support but that doesn't mean I will continue if I am not seeing what I need.
D&D is not an MMO only because it is not online, except for where it is online both as an MMO and through things like Fantasy Grounds, Maptool, etc. However, even where it is not "Online" it is still massive. It has multiple webisodes of game play as spectator entertainment. It has competitive tournaments. It has over four decades of material. If Britain was an Empire upon which the Sun Never Set, then it is likely one can say of D&D that it is a game in which there is no hour it is not being played, in multiple languages, in multiple time zones. I would even go so far as to say there are most likely small cities whose population does not exceed the number of people playing D&D at any given moment. I would call that massive and multiplayer, and a lot of it is online.
However, that doesn't address the temporary nature of the product being provided. Does it provide me the framework to print out or have professionally printed a .pdf in book form of my campaign? Does it provide me a hard copy CD that will allow me to work those materials here in my own home? I see no way to add maps, races, locales and regions, etc. to a campaign. My principle question still remains: "How is someone going to do better at sales at what the market will bear?" Because so far, I see no reason to dump the cost of 4 months worth of heat through the winter into the product. I have not been sold on something that I do not see providing a product for playing a game based on the possibilities of individual imagination, self-expression, and creation.
Among my people, we differentiate between luxury and necessity. You are correct in that D&D Beyond is not a necessity, as a bicycle will do. But I have yet to see any reason to consider it the luxury item to which you feel it should be compared.
I may not be the target audience, although I have only been expecting a functional product for 4 decades. You indicate this will organize my data "differently". That is rather nebulous. I can print my data one letter at a time on 5 mm square pieces of paper and then slosh them across the living room floor and call that differently organized. It is differently displayed if it is displayed at all. My data is currently kept in LibreOffice because the last MS Office product I got stated in the EULA that anything I wrote using their program was their property and I am not willing to give them intellectual property rights to my poetry, prose, and musings simply for the use of their product. However, since the mechanics for adding races to my campaign do not exist, it isn't differently organizing or differently displaying anything at all. I am being shown no product into which there is any worth investing money. It is all "talk, talk, talk" and pretty but non-functional pictures that demonstrate nothing of use.
You also misquoted me about my criticisms of the hard copy publications. It is the indices which are poorly printed in size such that I had to go and download a .pdf of just the indices to make reading them and using them convenient. And since there was a .pdf for me to download that tells me I am not the only person who found the print too small in the indices. If you are going to argue against me, pay attention to detail.
Concerning "setting the races available", telling them means nothing since the races are not available in the campaign material I am allowed to set within the parameters of the program. Since the service only has the cannon races, and only one of those races exists in my campaign, and even then that race (humans) is divided into seven distinct ethnic groups with their own idiosyncrasies, it isn't a matter of being able to tell the players what is available. It is a matter of the program not supporting creative campaigns.
You not wanting to eat eggplant is not a model representative of the issue. The program is being marketed as capable of supporting creative game play, but there is no proof the product will support creative game play. If you are going to buy eggplant - whether your will eat it or not, you should be able to get eggplant and not bitter-melon in the purchase.
Further, I have managed a database that was maintained on a Cray. What is needed is data input into whatever format is used to handle it currently. When I did this we were still using arrays and the methods for handing data in a database are easier now than they were then. From there you need several shells to manage calls for data, calculations for displayed sums, and skins to gussy it up for the fluff minded in the market. Are there a lot of clocked hours involved in this? Yes. Been there done that concerning fields of data much larger than the 10,000 or less words needed to write a D&D book.
Also, you are free to tell them you are willing to spend more if you wish. Certainly, let them know the cost is in your opinion to low, and you wish to pay 299.99 per Core Rule Book and 249.99 per additional publication so that you can feel you have paid them what they deserve. However, the bulk of your argument is that my assessment of what they cost in comparison to what the rural area in which I live can afford is unimportant and invalid. All of your arguments are based upon what you yourself can afford. Mine are not so limited, which is why the difference between someone's and county average does matter.
It's kind of dirty pool to be claiming the prices asked aren't reasonable while also making the unreasonable assumption that people interest in buying adventures are going to be interested in buying all of the adventures, and won't be considering the impact of their purchase of multiple adventures lightened by only spending $24.99 now and then another $24.99 some number of months (or even years) later after actually completing the prior adventure.
I mean, you may as well just say that D&D is a prohibitively expensive hobby because somebody could easily spend $500 just on dice. It's true, that much can be spent on dice, and more than a few people have done it (I know, all told and counting all the years, I've spent at least four times that much on dice)... but the reality, the actual practical truth of the matter, is that it probably only costs like $4 for someone to have all the dice they need (since Chessex sets of opaque dice are $3.85 according to their website).
Will all the backgrounds for character creation be added for the release
or does that come with the purchases?
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