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I am wondering if there is any news or action on updating the Pathfinder PRD? It hasn't been up dated since May of 2016, 19 months and counting. We've had 7 hard covers published since then:
Ultimate Intrigue
Horror Adventures
Villain Codex
B6
Adventurer's Guide
Book of the Damned
Ultimate Wilderness
Additionally there have been errata issued for UE that predates the last update that isn't included. Not to mention all of the errors on the website that haven't been fixed.
Is there any timeline that we can expect for this info to go up?
(not holding my breath for Starfinder SRD coming "fall 2017")
bump
I would be more forgiving about that if there had been an update in the last year. Most of the third party cites are blocked by work content filters, so a terribly outdated PRD is the only option available.
My understanding of the OGL is that they are legally obligated to keep the PRD up to date or risk violating said license (actual lawyer).
They are legally obligated to keep Section 15 of the OGL as updated as the PRD is, and ensure that any books they release have a fully up-to-date section 15, but I can’t see anything in the terms of the OGL that obligates them to even have the PRD, let alone update it.
I would be more forgiving about that if there had been an update in the last year. Most of the third party cites are blocked by work content filters, so a terribly outdated PRD is the only option available.
My understanding of the OGL is that they are legally obligated to keep the PRD up to date or risk violating said license (actual lawyer).
I am not a lawyer but What do work content filters have to do with not violating the ogl? Isn't this violating section 2 by putting on additional restrictions.
I see this as the work content filters being the problem.
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I would be more forgiving about that if there had been an update in the last year. Most of the third party cites are blocked by work content filters, so a terribly outdated PRD is the only option available.
My understanding of the OGL is that they are legally obligated to keep the PRD up to date or risk violating said license (actual lawyer).
As an actual lawyer I can tell you that Paizo is under no legal obligation to keep the PRD updated.
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Well you could actually BUY the product, then you would have access to it. I mean if you actually own it, why do you care if its online, you can just check your own copy.
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Well you could actually BUY the product, then you would have access to it. I mean if you actually own it, why do you care if its online, you can just check your own copy.
Purity, I buy every PDF that has any rule I use when building a character or when DMing. That means I have dozens of PDFs to search through when I want to find something. That's just not reasonable. Perhaps if I had a better memory and could remember exactly what resource everything came from... alas, I'm just not that smart, and there are computes to help with such things.
Look, the PRD is an enormously useful resource, that has made a big difference in my online gaming. That said, it's gotten so bad, more and more I just use the Archives of Nethys and ignore Paizo.
That's a bad reflection on Paizo. They're offering a tool to their community, which is very generous of them, but that tool is becoming less and less useful as time passes - even harmful - and they don't seem to care. Well, OK, that's probably not fair, and I have no right to assume what they feel, but they continue to ignore it and so what should I think?
It's a matter of priorities, and clearly the PRD hasn't been a priority for going on two years. That's pretty bad considering the amount of raw material and fixes in that time.
Meanwhile, does anyone have any idea how long it takes to update the PRD? I mean, it seems like it would be pretty straightforward for the hardcovers.
Doug M.
It's not straight forward at all. While I'm not specifically a website designer, I do compile a lot of data, and it's hell just trying to make that sortable. The big thing with the PRD design is it's filtering aspects. It would be fairly simple to copy paste material, and then add some links. Time consuming depending on how much material and links needed, but simple. However, when you're adding feats, gear, spells, monsters, so on and so forth, every thing has to properly filter, and that takes a lot of patience to get done.
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I’m sure it’s on the to-do list, but I suspect there are far more pressing issues.
They’ve had massive turnover in their technical staff over the last few years (they’ve recently hired a few IT people, but it was down to an absolute skeleton crew for a considerable period).
Given 3PP options do exist, I can understand why they’d prioritise core functions over something like this. Hopefully now most of the staffing needs have been filled, things will improve.
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Yeah, I appreciate the benefit. But they went from six or seven IT people a few years back down to three or four at the nadir (and stayed understaffed for some time). I don’t have any special insight, but it also appears that staff roles have been rejigged quite considerably over that period and that they rolled out a major tweak to the website that went awry.
Faced with that, they need to prioritise. It’s good if the PRD is up to date but It’s more important that the customer accounts keep working, PDFs get generated, spammers get fought off and payments get processed than the PRD get updated.
I doubt they’ve given up on it. It’ll just take longer than anyone wants because boring stuff we don’t ever think about is more important (in a “keep the place working” way) than the database we’ve grown accustomed to.
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Everyone wants an updated PRD. No one is arguing with that. I personally vastly prefer the PRD to the third party options.
But as stated clearly upthread--of course the website is a priority, and pretending they are not treating it as such just to press an argument is deceptive and silly. But the PRD is not the website. The store, user account functions, and PDF management are much higher priorities than the PRD. They've been working a long time on updates (some of which I believe is the cause of downtime). (ETA: and the recent spam attacks haven't been helping either.) I expect once the site updates to the major overall site finish, then the PRD will be get updated. But given that also involves a lot of long implementation rollout and bugfixing along the way, providing a realistic ETA is nearly impossible (so they're not telling us because they don't know). It doesn't mean it's not going to happen eventually.
You can choose not to believe that because you want reality to be different, but your choice to do so won't actually change reality, nor will continual arguments supporting your desired alternate reality (I'm sure everyone, Paizo included, also desires your alternate reality but it still won't make it so).
Also, given the PRD is an entirely free service Paizo provides at its choice (and not requirement; the person upthread was seriously misunderstanding the OGL), they are also under no obligation whatsoever to provide it at all let alone to provide any information about its updating. Anything they do provide in this area is pure courtesy, and we're lucky to get what we do. If you disagree with the business's practices you can show them that by ceasing to buy their products. There are plenty more RPGs out there.
Well you could actually BUY the product, then you would have access to it. I mean if you actually own it, why do you care if its online, you can just check your own copy.
I own a decent handful of pathfinder books, but when I want to reference something in the ACG I’m going to go to AoN before my actual copy. So not really.
Yeah. Maybe this time they'll keep up on it with 2e.