Ask Wizards: 09/05/2007 [DISCUSSION]

[PnP News Bot]

Check out this new article Wizards of the Coast posted recently:

Ask Wizards: 09/05/2007

What is the subscription price for D&D Insider?

[Farcaster]

between the cost of a single print issue of Dragon magazine and the monthly fee of a MMORPG (in other words, between $10 and $15).

WHAT??! You have got to be frikken kidding me! This is a pen and paper game. It is not an MMPOG! Why in the world would I want to pay $10-$15 per month just a digital publication and a few online tools?

[PhishStyx]

In fact, I've wondered this for a while

Dragon and Dungeon

Is there some significant difference between these two magazines?

Why does WOTC need 2 online magazines at all?

And perhaps I don't quite understand, but these are basically WOTC shill-machines, right?

Just as a reference, Palladium's Rifter, which appear to be a similar product are priced at $10.95.
EDIT: I forgot to mention earlier that the Rifter is a soft cover book print product. Sorry about that.

[starfalconkd]

...They are out of their f*****g minds. An online magazine subscription and a bunch of little tools are not worth that. I'd pay $5 if I ever intended to do it at all.

[Moritz]

Hum, let's review.

MMORPG's make a lot of money. WotC wants to make a lot of money.

There's a sucker born every day. WotC knows this and wants the sucker's money.

WotC creates products to make money. The more products they create, the more money they stand to make.

Were Dungeon and Dragon magazines discontinued? If so, it's just another medium in which to sell something and make another buck.

[TheYeti1775]

If it's that high, I won't be subscribing.
Wife and a 7yr old son will prevent that. If it's something like $3-5/month not a problem. Then you have to figure in, any kind of annual renewal discount.
And have they announced if old stuff will be accessible if you let it lapse?

[InfoStorm]

I'm with the Yeti.

The MMORPG I play is the one of the few I've found with NO monthly fee. I've got a mortgage and family to take care of. It's the reason I haven't bought any books since last Christmas and that's that. A monthly fee to play my D&D? NOT. I quit a large live RPG group because they started charging.

[Moritz]

Yeah, we pay enough for the books already. Screw paying for extras. Hell, I'm half inclined to use uTorrent.

[TheYeti1775]

Yeah, we pay enough for the books already. Screw paying for extras. Hell, I'm half inclined to use uTorrent.

There's easier ways than that.
Google is your friend.
Not that I condone it.

But really it takes me about 3-4 links with a proper search on Google for any WOTC book, and not more than 10 links usually for the Bigger Name D20 companies (Green Ronin / Mongoose) to find the PDF's of the books.

Do I feel bad about downloading these when I find them? Nope I don't. Course I usually have any book (the real hard copy) that I've found for downloading so far.

Sad part is since I pre-order my books through the year via Amazon, many times I can find the PDF before I even receive the book in the mail.

[ajmuszkiewicz]

Well, I have to say that if you don't plan on using the online tools or the material from Dungeon or Dragon, then no, the subscription fee is not worth it. If you do use material from Dragon and adventures from Dungeon, the price becomes more sensible. I was paying about that every month to buy print issues, and to be honest, at this point in my life, I really don't need anything else clogging up my bookshelves. Add to that the online tools and game table, with integration of the material from the magazines (and whatever WotC published books you buy), and the price is a lot more reasonable. I myself would most likely use the online game table, character creator and DM toolkit, so really, for me, I'd be paying for those things. Dungeon and Dragon are just a plus.

[RealmsDM]

lets face it.. pdf's are useful, but nothing beats a hard copy.Like farcaster said, this is a P&P game- not World of Warcraft. They're trying to pull a fast one on us for some crappy DM tools and online role playing- things we cant do/find on our own for free.

[Moritz]

I have a printer

[Skunkape]

While I have no problems paying an online subscription fee, I'm currently playing 2 mmorpgs, I'm not sure I like the idea of adding a computer to my table top gaming experience. While I've been looking at the advantages of having a computer there, from adding sound to the game to using some kind of instant messaging system, (see example here) to communicate with the players for notes, fundamentally, there's just something wrong with having a computer at a table top game.

When I finally get around to building my dedicated gaming room, which is somewhere in the next 5 to 10 years, then I might add a computer to the mix, but I don’t think I’ll be subscribing to Wizard’s new service. While I do like the idea of character builders and DM tools, I currently own DMGenie, I think that’s what I’ll be using for the near future because the cost of the Wizard's subscription just doesn’t add enough value, at least to me.

Hopefully they'll let us demo the service before we have to sign up.

[ajmuszkiewicz]

I use a computer (the same MacBook Pro I'm writing this on right now) at the gaming table every time I sit down. Every shred of information is right here at my fingertips. Every rule, every race, every class, every feat.

I used to be of the "nothing beats a book" mentality, but since I got my laptop, I've realized that all that paper has just been slowing me down. Now, I usually read every book on the laptop in pdf before I ever think about buying a physical copy. The last things I need is another shelf of textbook-sized pulped trees in my apartment.

Is a book better than a desktop? Of course! Would I be using a computer at the gaming table if it wasn't a laptop? Of course not!

I just gamed with a new group on Friday, bringing my laptop to the table. Each time the game started to get bogged down with rules, I simply opened up the laptop and found the answer before anyone else could even get a book out. The DM was so impressed that he remarked how much he envied my tool (and appreciated the skinny on how Improved Grab works) and really needed to get one of his own.

But really, the strengths of the tools that WotC is producing has little to do with at-the-gaming-table time. Really, only the online gaming table will be an at-the-table tool, and even that's mostly designed for online play. The biggest advantage of these tools (like the character creator and the DM's toolkit) is on the GAME PREP side. Personally, I think any help with that side of the game is worth the paltry sum they're asking for.

Could you do any of this stuff without DDI's online tools? Sure you could. Is it worth paying a bit extra every month (on top of your regular games budget) to have these services? If you'll use them, yes emphatically; if you won't, of course not.

[ajmuszkiewicz]

They're trying to pull a fast one on us for some crappy DM tools and online role playing- things we cant do/find on our own for free.

I'll assume you meant "things we CAN do/find on our own."

And really, I have to ask, have you SEEN the videos from GenCon with the DDI tools? I'd really have to assume you haven't, if you can make a statement like that. If you have, then I implore you, WHERE CAN I FIND THEM????? I have scoured the internet looking for programs that do what the DDI tools will do and have always come up short.

Where can I find a 3d virtual game table top that uses virtual DnD minis that look like what I want them to? Or that use DDM minis for monsters? Where can I find this amazing tool that lets me edit my game maps on the fly while I'm playing the game?

The old adage says "don't knock it 'til you've tried it."

Not that I've tried it, I just really have a lot of hope that WotC will come out with the product that THEY'VE WANTED TO for the last 8 years. There's a reason eTools was dropped: it never did what WotC wanted. If WotC is pushing forward this DDI, it can only be because the tools do what they were designed to do.