D&D Beyond Drops: Update on the Program

Quote from MilhouseBaxter >>

Quote from StoneRyno >>

Quote from MilhouseBaxter >>

One concern WoTC\DND Beyond should consider are the fact when you "buy" it online you can lose access in the event of the company shutting down the servers. People like me will spend thousands on books but aren't really inclined to buy something that's actually being leased with no real means of ensuring ownership of what I paid for. If you dedicate to providing a PDF of paid for digital content in the event of the sever\services being shut down, or allow people to buy annual or quarterly printed versions even if it's a soft back I'd buy it. As it stands I don't do subscriptions for access, and if I bought it digital only I'd need guarantees about not losing access because of bankruptcy, corporation businesses decisions to shut down services, or other legal trickery.

 I would hope if DDB were to end in the future people could get some sort of digital copy of the content they purchased. Unfortunately when it comes to electronic anything future availability is a risk. For example I own a series of PC games that I cannot play on newer versions of windows. To play them I would have to have a setup of an old windows version or something to play those games again. So even in those situations my ownership wasn't a guarantee forever in the respect of not having to go through a bunch of trouble to retain said ownership.

 
It's worse than that which is why I brought up stop killing games, company's disable their activation\DRM servers\services and suddenly a disc you bought and paid for stops working. Which is why like you I'd HOPE they'd do the right thing, but I'd also need them to make an affirmative declaration of such or make a physical medium available. I'm not going to try and get an AI to pirate my purchased content like we've seen so many AI firms pirate literally all known literature, movies, shows, etc. I want to buy, and I want to own. Not spending a cent of those two conditions can't be met.

 You don't own anything under capitalism. But indefinite rent is close enough.

Absolutely for these changes and clarifications.   

Thank you

Fantastic points. I personally buy the Physical/Digital bundle for this exact reason. I doubt it because Chris seems like a greedy CEO but I hope DnD Beyond will give us PDFs if/when they shut down the servers. Stop eliminating games!

So do subscribers get to keep their DnD Drops even if they cancel? What's the difference between Subscriber access and non subscriber access?

Hi D&D Team,

I appreciate the team making a pivot to try to better meet the communities expectations, communicating that to us, and doing so all very quickly.

I realize multiple decision makers are probably involved in augmenting a decision like this, and that this pivot will require some additional time and resources figuring out new math and logistics to make this happen.

I was planning to just ignore the drops and just not look at them even though I subscribe, but now I'll plan to give them a look since it seems will be possible to share with my friends who I'm in games with.

Cheers!

Reading some of these comments it's hilarious how nothing will satisfy people that want to be critical of anything done on this platform, lol.

Drops will be loathed by people that want to loath anything digital or costing money.

Here's hoping a leaking pipe doesn't ruin your physical print books/forever damaging your access to content, lol.

Quote from ButterBattlehammer >>

So do subscribers get to keep their DnD Drops even if they cancel? What's the difference between Subscriber access and non subscriber access?

We could do that before by clicking the "copy" button on the site's homebrew creation feature, lol.

I get that you guys are trying to come up with perks to make the subscriptions more enticing, but the main face plant is that in order to use the game, we have to be able to play any available content together.  If I can't play with my friend, then even if I paid for content, I'm punished and not able to use it due to the social requirements of the game.  Even if you tried to make a subscriber-only campaign setting, we'd need to be able to allow non-subscribers to play.  It's not a video game, nor a solo experience.  There are ways to do it, but that's not what the game really is.  I think the drops of "oldies but goodies" is a cool idea, you get to make use of a vast library of WotC IP without having to pay too much extra comparatively to put it out.  Maybe making DDB usable on previous edition rulesets would be a big enough carrot to get people to subscribe?  A subscriber-only audiobook from the library archive every month that we can read or listen to in the app to be part of the "seasons" structure?  That I think would be enough of a carrot and if non-subscribers wanted to be part of the conversation they can get a copy of the book from the library, used bookstore, etc. and not feel left out.  There are hundreds of books, you won't run out for decades.

I'm glad that you've been listening to our feedback!

There is one other thing I hope does get addressed, though, and that's the Adventurers League legality of the Drops. The current AL Player's Guide says that any official, campaign-neutral content is automatically AL legal, but then the Drops landed and we're told it's official but not AL legal. In fact, we've already had players showing up at AL games with the new Pact feats, and we've had to let them down by explaining that "yes, this is official content, but it's not allowed in AL, sorry."

If you're going to keep releasing these Drops, I think a lot of us in Adventurers League would like it if they'd become legal once they're more widely available, so we get to play with these fun new options too.

Thanka for taking responsibility and committing to what the community asked for

This is great news and I'm excited see them willingly to say they were wrong and adjusting. I know some people will never be happy but for me it made drops go from feeling nearly pointless as the subscribing DM to a huge bonus to the Master tier. Obviously I'd also support a physical release one day as I buy everything twice (digital and an alt cover at my LGS) just to protect against the servers going down one day.