4th & Dragon : Dungeons and Dragons...and stuff

That quote about it crashing actually made me laugh!

Then they follow it up with the fact that it is very normal for crashing to happen.  Which to some extent is true, but I have feeling the amount of crashing is giving us the pre alpha version of developement. 

I am unhappy that they are charging for the services they are providing, when all of this was supposed to be Ready Day 1.  I am happy that they didn’t rush it to get it out there, but interest will start to die down with the addition of a subscription price.

If they leave it free, they can get lots of input while they are developing the components, and they give people incentive to still come to the site.  Once they start charging for things the website will offer very little to non-subscribed people.

Right now I think that the prices are too high for a month for a digital production.  The only one that is probably on par with the value is the 12 month subscription fee.  The Compendium is not what was promised and won’t ever be as they changed what was promised with some nice deleteing and reposting.

The two magizines or eZines are top notch product wise, but without having a paper copy, but paying roughly paper copy prices(I know you get both for what one cost, but I only really like the adventures) for digital versions of stuff that will see very minimal use to me is not going to get me to subscribe.

With no more free items and stuff to preview before DnDi is truely ready to go, I will have lost most of the reason to go to Wizards.  I have yet to use the Compendium other than just to check it out, and I have not used any material found in the magizines yet.  4.95 a month is an ok price for the magizines, but it just seems like they should allow us to continue on free preview to save some face. 

Not having full components as promised or what was promised functioning as promised should be incentive for them to want to keep traffic up with goodpress from free magizines till those components are up and running.

I understand that once people start a subscription, they start getting more money and they are a business so why not make some money.  I also understand it is easier to go well i pay 4.95 a month now, why not bump that up another 3 dollars to get the character builder and character visualizer and then why not bumpt that 7.95 a month by 6 dollars to get the gametable and dungeon builder.  Then my twelve month subscription rate would be 13.95 a month similiar to buying wow every three months.

When they start to charge I will have lost most of the reason to go to Wizards as they won’t be providing much to non subscribers and those magizines can be gained by other means.  I hope that alot of people do a revolt because thier pricing model is too high.  it is like miniatures continueing to go up.  9.99 a box on the retail shelf was awesome 12.99 was ok, and now I buy none.  Random and 16 bucks a box is terrible. 

9.99 for the whole dndi was nice, 9.99 but have to buy minis was ok, 15.99 and have to buy minis blows.  Now they are charging 7.95 for two magizines and a minorally useful compendium of character generation.  Half the subscription price for basically no utility.  By the time Gametable comes out they will want to raise the monthly price to 21.95 a month and if you buy 12 months at once you can get it for 15.95 a month.

end rant

They mention “bonus tools” being ready and available already, but I haven’t seen them.  Have any of you?

I’m also disappointed that they’re switching to a subscription model before finishing the client applications.  This isn’t what the previously promised, though I suppose at this point we should be used to that.

I, for one, won’t be signing up for a subscription anytime soon.  I’ll wait for all the client applications to be ready before even considering it and even then will be looking for a way to trial them before committing any money to the process.

Ditto Black Plauge.  This pisses me off something awful.  I’m incensed at this idea.  This is a bunch of utter BS!

I believe those prices are very ridiculous, and I hope people refuse to pay them.  If I read the article right, that is the “basic” subscription price, as in they plan to have people pay that much for just the magazines, the compendium and the bonus tools.  That doesn’t even include the builder, visualizer, or the dungeon maker.  I MIGHT be able to see that price if you were given all of those for that price, but I don’t see any chance I’d pay that much for just the basics

Wait, 5$ a month for both Dungeon and Dragon PDFs? (plus some other junk) That sounds ok to me. I really like the PDFs, they’re high quality. I’m hoping we can still get the August issue free.

Black Plauge, go to their website.  Click on D&D Insider on the side and you’ll see bonus tools in the list of pages that you can go to.  You’ll also see it on the icons that accompany the insider page between Magazines and Character Visualizer.

The Encounter Tool serves the same function as Asmor’s Encounter Generator except that it isn’t random.

Our current plan is to start charging for subscriptions before we have the client applications ready. That means the initial Insider subscription package will include exactly those parts that are currently in free trial mode: the magazines, the Compendium, and the bonus tools. The price tag for this subscription is as low as $4.95 per month, depending on how many months you are willing to sign up for.

Right there is where it says it

(the free trial will last for at least one more month).

So we will get August and maybe September but that will probably be it.

Yeah, they listened to our complaints SO EFFING WELL, that now their once again changing their friggin stories.  I’m starting to believe all the Ha$bro and $E crap now.  If the D&D online goes live for money next month, I will subscribe and I’m offering it up now that I’m not adverse to sharing.

(Crap - they’re, not their.)

It seems like they aren’t even bother trying to hide the fact that this is just a way to squeeze money out of consumers, they just don’t care that they are charging for a service that should be free (or at least WAY cheaper than this)

I believe they blatantly don’t care

Click on D&D Insider on the side and you’ll see bonus tools in the list of pages that you can go to.  You’ll also see it on the icons that accompany the insider page between Magazines and Character Visualizer.

I swear, they weren’t there this morning.

They weren’t.  They put them up during the day.

I wonder if a popular video game tried to charge for the alpha release of their product how said release would go.  Oh wait…

charging for a service that should be free

The amount of whining about this issue is bordering Veruca Salt.  “I want it now”.  I only say that because historically, from what I have read on the DnDi topic, after something is released people complain about it and say, “now I want...”

Excuse me, Kyle and SirTayls, but I distinctly recall a time when those things were free.  And I don’t want to hear whining about “If it is so good then why not charge for it?!” Cause you know what?… during the time WotC was offering this kind of thing for free was during the time that they were most successful.  THAT is what I call a good business model. 

Also, there is nothing worse than whining...about someone whining.

What exactly was free? Dungeon Magazine? Dragon Magazine?

And I’m not whining.  At all.  Just pointing out facts.

sirtayls you beat me to it.  Yes, Dragon and Dungeon magazines have been free for less than one year of their entire lifespan.  We were told they would get back to charging for them, and they are magazines after all...you know a product that WotC sells.

My main complaint is basically they should continue to allow free access to these products as incentive to continue to thier site during the construction period of things that were supposed to be ready by now and as a sign of goodwill to make up for the fact that they are so far behind schedule while also changing what they said the items would be/do and then saying they never said those things.

Second I find the pricing model too aggressive for my tests unless you buy 12 months up front.  There are still Three big electronic apps that have yet to make it to the big game so to speak.  They are charging 7.95 for a minor app, some ok bonus tools(not bad but not that needed for most people), and for two well down magizines that have no printing costs or distribution costs to factor in.

If they are pricing this agressive for a third of the product(at best), then I am not sure if they will end up holding to the 15.95 a month for the whole thing.  Like I said I expect to seem them only offer that low price if you sign up for a year or other chunk of time that is greater than a quarter of a year.

I’m sure if the pricing model does not hit their goal revenue numbers, things will adjust as necessary.  Nobody is forcing you to purchase this to play the game.

What was the 12-month subscription rate for Dragon and Dungeon from Paizo?

I think 40 or 50 dollars a year if I remember correctly but I could be wrong.  I seem to remember if you bought both it was about 80ish.

That is what I mean Sirtayls, I personally won’t be buying a subscription to Dungeon and Dragon as I don’t have a group to play with often enough for any of it to do me good except to read.  This means that the main incentive for me to go to Wizards has all but ceased. 

I am sure there are others like me. I am highly interested in the Gametable so i can see more easy access to gaming.  If they keep the Dragon and Dungeon to 4.95 I will probably subscribe eventually.

What was free?  Lets see.  Adventures were free.  Several different kinds of character sheets were free.  Character portraits were free.  Maps were free.  There were even other things like screen savers, Map-A-Week, Themes and Skins, Web Enhancements, Wallpapers, and plenty of old editions with free content. 

Thats not even mentioning the other stuff like Errata, Game Rule FAQs, Glossary, Rules of the Game articles (which I particularly enjoyed).  I also enjoyed a lot of things in the Previews section.  Personally I liked the multitude of content in the Articles section.  I particularly liked the articles by Sean K. Reynolds as they dealt with Savage Progressions and I found those interesting.  But they had everything from News articles to D&D Podcasts, Character Class articles, D&D Alumni articles, D&D fiction, D&D fight club, Design and Development, Elite Opponents, The Mind’s Eye, Prestige Class articles, Product Spotlight, Save My Game, Tactics and Tips, Vicous Venues, Villain Builder, Adventure Builder and Dice games. 

There was an absolute ton of free material available on WotC’s page.  That is going to all change with the advent of 4e and D&Di;.  For this same kind of content you will be forced to pay for it.  I have a feeling that it isn’t going to go over as well as this same kind of content being free.  I would have happily paid for Dragon and Dungeon magazines because I like having a hard copy and realize that there is some production cost to those products.  The amount of money they are charging for something with no real production cost is redonkulous, IMO. 

Please realize that when others share their opinions if they do not particularly like something that they are not always “whining”.  When you are talking about an opinion someone here has shared and then refer to sharing that kind of opinion as “whining” it could easily get taken personally.

Lune, you are correct that all of those things were free. At the same time, the weren’t on a time schedule to get things out. Hypothetically, paying for it will guarantee stuff to come out weekly-ish and then compiled at the end of the month. I say this while still agreeing with most of what you say. I personally have a hard time giving them my money at this point, but hopefully they will change that.

And I believe they said that many of those things would continue to be free for non-subscribers, but that there would probably be a lull in that content while they were getting 4e out the door.  Although the Core Books are out, 4e still isn’t really out the door yet.  A lot of resources ($) are going into getting the DDI out the door, and while those who will be providing the free content probably aren’t sitting around twiddling their thumbs, I would think the bean counters might find it hard to justify them creating free content when the continuous revenue machine isn’t up and running yet.

And I believe they said that many of those things would continue to be free for non-subscribers

Find it.  I would say I would believe it when I see it in print but that would be a lie.  The way that WotC is breaking previous promises with 4e already (even specifically regarding this topic) and wanting to charge for anything they can squeeze out of their loyal patrons I would not venture to guess they would have anywhere near as much free content as they previous had. 

Also, Talae, I can tell you that there were timelines for those things before.  Perhaps it wasn’t as stringent as it will be now but even if it were that is all part of my point.  Why have solid timelines for things that are free?  But I never noticed a shortage of free material.  This bolstered the player base of D&D as well as the RPG community in general.  IMO, WotC’s latest initiative is doing the opposite.

I don’t think I’ll waste my time looking for something you’ve already stated you won’t believe.  If you change your mind, find it yourself.  I think I remember reading it around January.

No need for poor tone.  I’m not challenging you, Kalex.  I simply meant that I had not heard that those things would be free.  In fact, I have heard the opposite.  And I think even the biggest fans of 4e have shown their distaste for WotC going back on promises past.  I mean, just look back in this thread itself. 

Tell you what though, if you think that they said it I will humor them this one time if you do happen to find anything stating freeness.  I do not plan on looking it up myself because I don’t care that much.  I do not plan on purchasing 4e in the forseeable future anyway.

They did say that stuff was going to carry on free and that a lull would occur.  Then in an interview the production guy said he imagined that 3rd parties (us) would pick up the slack and put stuff out for free.  Sucks compared to the stuff they are doing for content now anyway (its really good).

And Lune, you are an idiot for not getting 4e (thats right, i said it.  Snap).  Its rather fun.

SPQR: (Gibbering Mouther Ate Your Word!) off.

Find it.

I’m not challenging you, Kalex

are you sure you aren’t challenging him?

Yes.