So today DDI goes on sale. Unfortunately, I've been so underwhelmed with Dungeon and the SoW AP that I've decided not to pay for the subscription price.
Fortunately I've got Paizo. In the next couple days (when I get my next paycheck), I'll be subscribing to the the Pathfinder APs and converting them to 4.0 as necessary. I've made this decision despite that the cost is almost 4x the price.
I don't have anything against WotC and I like 4e. However, a few of their business decisions have lost me as a customer.
One, the magazines are not in print - I don't want to belabor this point as it has been discussed. But it's still a deciding factor.
Two, the quality has been a mixed bag. The adventures have ranged from poor to good, but nothing has equaled Paizo. The Dungeon Delve format is boring to read, and most of the adventures focus more on combat than story or roleplaying.
Three, WotC has refused to put out a decent overview for their AP despite customer feedback to the contrary. This doesn't give me hope about their abilities to cater to customers, nor does it make me excited about the AP.
Like I said - this is not to begrudge WotC - this decision is based purely on what I desire as a customer and WotC just isn't coming through. If a few of the above items improved, then I may reconsider.
I'd love to hear other people's thoughts who are also making a decision.
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So today DDI goes on sale. Unfortunately, I've been so underwhelmed with Dungeon and the SoW AP that I've decided not to pay for the subscription price.
Fortunately I've got Paizo. In the next couple days (when I get my next paycheck), I'll be subscribing to the the Pathfinder APs and converting them to 4.0 as necessary. I've made this decision despite that the cost is almost 4x the price.
I don't have anything against WotC and I like 4e. However, a few of their business decisions have lost me as a customer.
One, the magazines are not in print - I don't want to belabor this point as it has been discussed. But it's still a deciding factor.
Two, the quality has been a mixed bag. The adventures have ranged from poor to good, but nothing has equaled Paizo. The Dungeon Delve format is boring to read, and most of the adventures focus more on combat than story or roleplaying.
Three, WotC has refused to put out a decent overview for their AP despite customer feedback to the contrary. This doesn't give me hope about their abilities to cater to customers, nor does it make me excited about the AP.
Like I said - this is not to begrudge WotC - this decision is based purely on what I desire as a customer and WotC just isn't coming through. If a few of the above items improved, then I may reconsider.
I'd love to hear other people's thoughts who are also making a decision.
I'll be subscribing. Dragon has been outstanding and whilst Dungeon is hit and miss (always was though) I can still mine it for monsters/items/npc's and the odd good adventure they do (not SoW though. Blegh!) Add in some handy online tools and I'm sold.
When I tried to get the one year for sixty bucks option with the DI I couldn't find a paypal link. Unless I missed it looks like they're only taking credit cards. I suspect I'll still get it, but that kind of annoyed me so I put it on the back burner. Since I'm planning on doing NaNoWriMo this year (supposed to mention that in various venues to set myself up for merciless taunting if I fail to follow through :) ) maybe I'll worry about it in a few weeks.
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Until DDI is fully functional I'm not going to bother with a subscription. 2 e-mags, a half-assed compendium and lame bonus tool set isn't worth $60 bucks. Maybe when DDI is fully up and the character Visualizer, Character Builder, Dungeon Builder and the D&D Game Table are running then it might be worth the price tag. Until then I will be stealing ideas from other sources and work then into my games.
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I agree. There are some things about 4E that are worth salvation in some form or another, but the overall WotC PR, core books content and handling of the future of DnD does not make me a customer.
No later than yesterday, I was pouring though some of my oldest print magazines and sighed "I miss Dragon and Dungeon mags". I don't want electronic versions. I want print magazines. They're gone.
Add to this that in many ways, D&D fired me as a customer by WotC's PR calling me a guy "unwilling to accept change" and other insulting shortcuts, as well as making the rules more miniatures friendly, even more tactical (i.e. nitpicky on placement and definitions of actions and reactions) than they were before, and that's about it.
Add to this that I have enough OGL gaming materials to last a lifetime, and that I simply do not want to learn yet another new game system obsolete in eight years from now or less.
Add to this that there is actually one gaming company going on with the OGL, Paizo.
Result? Clearly:
Paizo it is.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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My current Browser Homepages:
Hotmail
Paizo
D&D (Wizards)
Sinister
Giant In the Playground
Over the coming weeks I can see that becoming:
Hotmail
Paizo
Sinister
Giant In the Playground
I like the ruleset behind 4e, but I just don't think it fits in with the D&D image (on the other hand I love Saga Edition Star Wars, so you can see that I really don't dislike the system).
Sorry but I'd much rather spend my money on something interesting like Pathfinder or Kobold Quarterly.
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I love Saga Edition Star Wars, so you can see that I really don't dislike the system
Same thing here. At the time Saga was published, I was one of its most ardent supporters, and still am. I warned, even at the time, when rumors were running wild, that what worked mechanically for the SW universe may not work for D&D necessarily. Sadly, I was right, from my point of view. That's okay if many disagree as they are. It's all about our relative tastes and experiences. It's fine if they don't match.
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So today DDI goes on sale.
<snip>
I'd love to hear other people's thoughts who are also making a decision.
I *want* to subscribe, I really do. I want to support 4E because, aside from what's observed here on the boards, my 4E materials coexist quite peacefully with my 3.5/Pathfinder goodies (and my Powers and Perils stuff, Original D&D materials, Hollow World setting, BESM, Oriental Adventures (L5R version), etc.)
However, in the thread LAMENT FOR PRINT (I'm having problems accessing the WotC forum pages lately), I discussed at WotC that, while I have downloaded everything so far, the ONLY article I actually take time to read regularly is Shelly's CONFESSIONS... I did print out the conversion notes for placing Keep... in Faerun, but other than that, it's been mostly a wasted effort for WotC (I haven't even looked at the Barbarian playtest rules!! Gasp!!). The odd part is, and I want to stress this strongly, it wasn't a conscious decision! It was something I didn't realize until later when I was sitting here trying to convince myself to read an article.
In my mind, there is more to interacting with an article than staring at liquid crystal, and it isn't something that I can do as a standard form of reading. Perhaps it is a result of reading in bed, of finding a specific spot in which to enjoy reading, etc. Persons of my generation and older are probably too habit-ingrained with print material to readily accept the digital medium as the primary presentation source.
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No later than yesterday, I was pouring though some of my oldest print magazines and sighed "I miss Dragon and Dungeon mags". I don't want electronic versions. I want print magazines. They're gone.
I agree, with the electronic version, unless you are willing to eat up space on your hard drive, there is no way to store them. Even then you have no way to carry them around, short of printing them yourself. I want something that I can hold in my hands and look at.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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I agree, with the electronic version, unless you are willing to eat up space on your hard drive, there is no way to store them. Even then you have no way to carry them around, short of printing them yourself. I want something that I can hold in my hands and look at.
I'm not so worried about the HD space (I have a Terabyte in my PC and another Terabyte on External), but for me the real downside has definately been the loss of Print Editions. I like to have the physical copy in my hands to read. The only good thing to come of the digital editions is that I actually like the landscape formatting to make them fit better onto the screen for reading (skimming) purposes.
I'll echo many of the same sentiments:
- I like the 4E rules
- I don't like that they didn't give us all of the "core" classes. Leaving barbarian, druid, and bard kinda sucked. A smaller typeset, and they could have fit in more classes.
- I hated the first adventure... it was terrible. I haven't been impressed by any of the others (that I've read) either.
Honestly, in this case, first impressions were HUGE, and the lameness of Keep on the Shadowfell totally blew 4E for me. It is terrible. Compare it to Curse of the Crimson Throne... You can't. And, I just don't get it. Maybe they don't want players that like fluff. Why didn't they have someone awesome write some of these first adventures... or, if they were awesome, why'd they hamstring them?
I like the 4E rules, but I HATE what WotC has done with them. It's pretty sad actually. The only hope WotC has to keep me as a customer is for some 3rd party to put out an awesome campaign setting that will make me want to go buy more of the 4E rules and then subscribe to DDI for the toolsets, etc. because right now, I could care less about what WotC publishes. It's just not interesting to me.
Now, maybe I should give them more of a chance, but it's hard to beat first impressions. Is there any WotC published 4E adventure that is worth reading? Please, if so, let me know.
Even though, as a GM, I'm sticking with 3.5/potentially PRPG, I'm a player in a 4E game, and I like that I can glance at new material in the Compendium before I get a book (and to be honest, if I really want, say, a greatspear, I don't need to buy the whole Adventurer's Vault to get it). For me, it was worth keeping this for the monthly fee, and to see how some of my fellows from Candlekeep handle upcoming FR articles, despite the fact that I'm not a fan of the 4E Realms themselves.
I have actually liked the 4E Dragon articles, although I still would have been much happier with a print version, especially one that was produced by Paizo. As a player, I mainly ignore Dungeon, but from what I've seen and heard, I've not been too impressed by it.
Bottom line is that I think the monthly fee is worth it, for me, but I'm keeping an eye on the potential price changes. I'd love the Character Creator, if it works well and doesn't bump the price of the overall package much.
On the flip side, I listened to the podcast where the WOTC folks explained why they don't want to do an adventure path outline, and it made no sense to me whatsoever. In fact, they seemed to go so over the top in trying to explain why they weren't going to put out an outline, I started to get the feeling that the reason might be more along the lines that they don't have an outline. Not to say they don't know a few months ahead of time what they want to do, but that perhaps the entire campaign arc isn't really solid at all yet. That is the kind of thing that does bug me about WOTC. Honestly, if they had said "hey, a 1-30 campaign arc is a huge thing, and we may change a lot between now and then, and we don't know for sure what we want to do in some places, so an outline wouldn't be useful or even possible," I would completely understand that.
Still, the deciding factor for me was the Compendium. Its has the same kind of functionality to me that the Hypertext D20 site has for me in my 3.5 games, and there are a lot of times when I'm sitting in front of the computer that I'm just lazy enough to want to do a search rather than look through a book.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
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The only hope WotC has to keep me as a customer is for some 3rd party to put out an awesome campaign setting that will make me want to go buy more of the 4E rules.
I am seriously considering getting Wraith Recon even though I'm steering clear of 4e (I do have the 3 Core Books though). The setting sounds awesome. Maybe that's what you're looking for?
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The only hope WotC has to keep me as a customer is for some 3rd party to put out an awesome campaign setting that will make me want to go buy more of the 4E rules.I am seriously considering getting Wraith Recon even though I'm steering clear of 4e (I do have the 3 Core Books though). The setting sounds awesome. Maybe that's what you're looking for?
Don't give up on 4e just because the publiser is acting like an ass. There are plenty of third party stuff comming out that has lots of promise.
Now, maybe I should give them more of a chance, but it's hard to beat first impressions. Is there any WotC published 4E adventure that is worth reading? Please, if so, let me know.
I happened to like Thunderspire Labyrinth and have been mildly entertained by a couple Dungeon adventures.
However, nothing compares to Paizo. With all the flaws I think the Paizo adventures have, I find them extremely rich and full of life. With a picture, a song lyric, or a passage, Paizo manages to continually inspire my imagination, makes me say, "What if...", and gets me excited about running the adventure.
Most of the adventures I've read so far for 4e are a little lifeless.
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So today DDI goes on sale.
<snip>
I'd love to hear other people's thoughts who are also making a decision.I *want* to subscribe, I really do. I want to support 4E because, aside from what's observed here on the boards, my 4E materials coexist quite peacefully with my 3.5/Pathfinder goodies (and my Powers and Perils stuff, Original D&D materials, Hollow World setting, BESM, Oriental Adventures (L5R version), etc.)
However, in the thread LAMENT FOR PRINT (I'm having problems accessing the WotC forum pages lately), I discussed at WotC that, while I have downloaded everything so far, the ONLY article I actually take time to read regularly is Shelly's CONFESSIONS... I did print out the conversion notes for placing Keep... in Faerun, but other than that, it's been mostly a wasted effort for WotC (I haven't even looked at the Barbarian playtest rules!! Gasp!!). The odd part is, and I want to stress this strongly, it wasn't a conscious decision! It was something I didn't realize until later when I was sitting here trying to convince myself to read an article.
In my mind, there is more to interacting with an article than staring at liquid crystal, and it isn't something that I can do as a standard form of reading. Perhaps it is a result of reading in bed, of finding a specific spot in which to enjoy reading, etc. Persons of my generation and older are probably too habit-ingrained with print material to readily accept the digital medium as the primary presentation source.
Really. Shelly's articles are the only ones I avoid like the plague. After I read the first few, I wanted back the few minutes of my life spent reading them. To each his own I guess. Anyway, to get back on track, there is no way I am going to pay money for the epic fail that is DDI.
I am on board with DDI; then again, I am a hardcore sucker for acronyms.
While I am not a 4e supporter and am uninterested in the DDI, I had a similar problem with Dungeon and Dragon magazine when I started collecting issues.
At first I simply started getting magazine PDF and calling it good, but then I started to realize that it was a pain to find resources and that if my wife was using the computer then those resources were unavailable for an unspecified amount of time. Not being able to take my computer with me when I go to work or something of the sort, where I might take a break and read an article started to really bug me.
I finally broke down and bought a load of dead-tree copies. I've used about 2-3 times more content since then and have actually justified the cost of my purchases.
The only hard part for the 4e'ers is that DDI is only available online. Unfortunately this is a medium that will only get more and more common as time goes on. Once more people have affordable and easy access to the internet and computer files while out and about it might not be so bad.
iPhone's anyone? Anyone who can afford them at least....
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I agree. After today, there is no real reason to even get on WotC's site. Bye. Bye. WotC.
Ditto for me.
Ditto for my six players.
Ditto for another five players at our local FLGS who are proudly playing Pathfinder Roleplaying Game - Beta Playtest in the store amidst the dusty shelves of 4e paraphernalia.
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I was looking at the DDI stuff yesterday, and I could have sworn that they said the Basic Tools (Encounter Generator, Character Creator, and Monster Creator) were going to be freely avaliable to everyone. Now they say that you need to have a subscription to use them. That is the type of thing that is driving the casual fan like me away from WoTC and towards publishers like Paizo.
Now they say that you need to have a subscription to use them. That is the type of thing that is driving the casual fan like me away from WoTC and towards publishers like Paizo.
Paizo has a free character creator?!
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That is the type of thing that is driving the casual fan like me away from WoTC and towards publishers like Paizo.
You may not be as much of a "casual fan" as you may think. WotC has a huge customer base that does not look beyond the "official" products. They own few if any third party products. They buy the game in stores that don't carry any third party publisher products. They show up at an FLGS, ask for latest WotC release and then disappear until the next one comes along.
If you own more than a few Paizo products you are likely more than just a casual fan.
Customer care and service and a solid printed magazine goes a loooong way.
So I was wishy-washy about 4e, at first I rebelled and fought, angrily decrying a new edition... then promptly bought the books and liked them. This is the same thing I did when 3.0 came out and I was still playing 2nd edition. Now I find myself flummoxed. I'm heavily considering going strictly back to running 3.x games and only playing 4.0 if any else locally runs it (most of the people I know run 3.x). Why is that you ask? Simple, feel. After running 4.0 since inception I have to say it is fun, and a great tactical game, but man does it suck for long term campaigns. I think it will make a great diversion, and good for one shots, but the gameplay to me just feels like I couldn't handle running 30 levels of it. Combined with poor adventure offerings, a kinda clunky website, the inability to actually tell people what's going on (they're more secretive about upcoming stuff than champion BBQ griller's recipes) has just left me fondly looking at 3.x and 3.P. Oh and while the widescreen format is great for computers I hate it for printing, and the fact that it would be easy to offer both formats to paying customers, but won't be done kind of killed my interest in subscribing. Besides between games like Fable 2 and the like coming out and my weekly pull of comics at my local shop I only have so much gaming budget, and it pretty much goes to Paizo for the APs, which are full of win.
I agree. After today, there is no real reason to even get on WotC's site. Bye. Bye. WotC.
Ditto for me.
Ditto for my six players.
Ditto for another five players at our local FLGS who are proudly playing Pathfinder Roleplaying Game - Beta Playtest in the store amidst the dusty shelves of 4e paraphernalia.
Point.
Counterpoint:
My FLGS cannot keep enough 4e in stock. He burns through them every week.
No, but they never claimed they did either.Now they say that you need to have a subscription to use them. That is the type of thing that is driving the casual fan like me away from WoTC and towards publishers like Paizo.Paizo has a free character creator?!
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That is the type of thing that is driving the casual fan like me away from WoTC and towards publishers like Paizo.You may not be as much of a "casual fan" as you may think.
If you own more than a few Paizo products you are likely more than just a casual fan.
By a casual fan, I mean that I don't spend a lot of time of messageboards, debating the ends and outs of this system or that system. I sit down and play a few hours a week, but that is about it. The only board I spend any real time on is the Paizo board and even that is mostly spent in the Off Topic section.
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By a casual fan, I mean that I don't spend a lot of time of messageboards, debating the ends and outs of this system or that system. I sit down and play a few hours a week, but that is about it. The only board I spend any real time on is the Paizo board and even that is mostly spent in the Off Topic section.That is the type of thing that is driving the casual fan like me away from WoTC and towards publishers like Paizo.You may not be as much of a "casual fan" as you may think.
If you own more than a few Paizo products you are likely more than just a casual fan.
Ah. Got it.
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... and my FLGS runs two Living Forgotten Realms days (with six tables per day) each month PLUS delves on Sundays and cannot even get one table of Living Greyhawk together.Counterpoint:
My FLGS cannot keep enough 4e in stock. He burns through them every week.
Wow, that would be great. I don't even have a FLGS any more. When we did it was impossible to put together an RPGA event because we have too many power gamers who thought that the characters they could create using the point buy system were way too weak.
I agree. After today, there is no real reason to even get on WotC's site. Bye. Bye. WotC.
Ditto for me.
Ditto for my six players.
Ditto for another five players at our local FLGS who are proudly playing Pathfinder Roleplaying Game - Beta Playtest in the store amidst the dusty shelves of 4e paraphernalia.
Point.
Counterpoint:
My FLGS cannot keep enough 4e in stock. He burns through them every week.
The books a million near me has had 40 since day one, they have sold 3.They have know sold out of all 3.5 stuff and was ordering more from what they had in wherhouse I was told. each area is diff I guess.
In Minnesota, 4th edition is not selling well at all. People overall seem to have a meh attitude about it, at least that is what several staff members at one of the bigger gaming stores in the US tell me.
I noticed in the local book store in a smaller town (pop. 15,000 or so) that it isn't selling at all, but then neither is 3.5, though there are no new products and they are simply trying to get rid of what little they have left.
Yeah, but they elected Jesse "the body" Ventura governor so....
Yes they did, do you think that tanked 4th edition sales here in MN? I had no idea he had so much influence.
He was mad about the bard, and the gnome...
Good one, I just broke out laughing!
He said, when they canceled Dungeon and Dragon, it made the doves cry.
I betcha he followed it up with Computer Blues (also from the purple rain album)?
For those not subscribing, what changes would entice you to subscribe?
For me, I used to get only Dungeon magazine and mostly for the APs but occasionally for other adventures. Seeing as how SoW hasn't excited me at all , I just don't see a need for DDI. Many times I used the online Dragon and Dungeon for borrowing stats, but I'm getting used to doing that on my own and actually enjoy the challenge.
Maybe once the character builder is working or if they find their stride with adventures, then I'll want to subscribe. Right now I'm happily reading the remainder of CoCT.
I think $5/month (for a year subscription) is extremely reasonable. However, I would be willing to pay much more than that for print. It's not about money. In fact, it has more to do with time - I just don't have time to keep up with both Paizo and Dungeon adventures and cannot justify spending money on that which I probably won't read.
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For those not subscribing, what changes would entice you to subscribe? Higher quality of dragon magazine? A reduction in price? Having print versions available? More payment options? (I know they are already working at adding Paypal as an option.)
A print version and higher quality articles would be a great start. The articles have been pretty hit and miss. Some, like the Trolls of War, have been really good. Others, like the artificer playtest, not so much. Getting the rest of DDI would help too. Right now we are being askerd to subscribe on the promise of a bunch of cool things that they can't deliver on, and there is no firm time table when they will be avalible.
For those not subscribing, what changes would entice you to subscribe? Higher quality of dragon magazine? A reduction in price? Having print versions available? More payment options? (I know they are already working at adding Paypal as an option.)
I might purchase currently, but I would be more committed if I could get a subscription to only Dragon at a reduced price.
Also, one thing that is hanging me up is that you have to select auto-renew when you purchase access. You can't just say from the start that you don't want them to automatically renew. I don't want to go through that hassle.
Even the option of a better printable format (read: letter instead of landscape) would probably persuade me immensly, followed by better aps and the like. At the current price it isn't bad at all, but I'm not a huge fan of paying for web only content.... likes me some dead tree.
I do like D&D 4E, and my play group is enjoying the 4E experience. I am starting to run some RPGA stuff on a monthly basis as well. I have ordered and pre-ordered a bunch of 4E stuff since its release.
That being said, I will not subscribe to DDI. The only thing I have enjoyed from the content is the Dragon magazine. Dungeon's adventures haven't impressed me much. The online content doesn't do much for me. I like the Dragon articles and the new options for the game they provide. But as I cannot subscribe to just Dragon, I will not subscribe to DDI. (Plus I have a WoW addiction to feed... and other monthly hobby expenditures as well.) I will also to continue to snag and convert adventures from other sources, such as Paizo and Necromancer.