D&D Insider "free trial" ending
WotC announced that it will start charging for its DDI "service" in October. It still has of yet to deliver on the various features it has promised for DDI and more and more I'm seeing the term vaporware bandied about.
While I'm normally a big advocate of supporting game companies that put out quality product, in the case of DDI it seems like... what's the term I'm looking for... oh yeah, a ripoff.
For $7.95 a month, you get access to the neutered online versions of Dragon and Dungeon magazine, the D&D Compendium, and the "Bonus Tools". The Character Visualizer, the Character Builder, the Dungeon Builder, and D&D Gaming Table are still all unavailable.
I think WotC may have poisoned the well. The best way to prevent piracy is to put out quality product at a fair price... sure there will still be people that will download it elsewhere, but if you price is fair a lot more average people will pay it. And there's the whole vaporware issue.
Add into that dissatisfaction with several aspects of 4e and the year wait until a large portion of the original classes come out and players will look elsewhere, either home-brewing rules, using the HB rules found on the net, or 3rd party publishers. I know that if I get off my lazy ass and put together my 3.9 rules, I won't need a lot from WotC as their splat books will be almost useless. For that matter I won't need third party books either. Why buy someone else's druid when I've made my own?
While I'm normally a big advocate of supporting game companies that put out quality product, in the case of DDI it seems like... what's the term I'm looking for... oh yeah, a ripoff.
For $7.95 a month, you get access to the neutered online versions of Dragon and Dungeon magazine, the D&D Compendium, and the "Bonus Tools". The Character Visualizer, the Character Builder, the Dungeon Builder, and D&D Gaming Table are still all unavailable.
I think WotC may have poisoned the well. The best way to prevent piracy is to put out quality product at a fair price... sure there will still be people that will download it elsewhere, but if you price is fair a lot more average people will pay it. And there's the whole vaporware issue.
Add into that dissatisfaction with several aspects of 4e and the year wait until a large portion of the original classes come out and players will look elsewhere, either home-brewing rules, using the HB rules found on the net, or 3rd party publishers. I know that if I get off my lazy ass and put together my 3.9 rules, I won't need a lot from WotC as their splat books will be almost useless. For that matter I won't need third party books either. Why buy someone else's druid when I've made my own?
posted by Oz at 2:42 PM
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