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5 years ago ::
Apr 02, 2008 - 4:00PM
#11
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Date Joined:
Jan 11, 2008
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The only thing I can possibly see my group doing is to pay for the insider as a collective to test out the non-Dragon/Dungeon stuff.
But I doubt it will matter. I want my magazines back. I like to be able to take them places. I like to be able to look at them when I am waiting for my car to be serviced, or lying down before I go to sleep or while I am lying on a heating pad or an ice pack, or a number of other occasions where internet access isn't feasible or convenient.
Old fogy!! 
Actually, if they would include support for e-readers, that would be a really nice leap from where it is now. And, why aren't you taking your laptop with you? hehe
Well, since this free preview is to give you an idea of what you get when you pay for it, I'm not entirely impressed. And, if it changes after you start paying, then the preview was worthless. So, either way, I'm not impressed with the preview. Either the content is going to blow going forward, or the preview is bogus.
So, with that, I doubt I'll subscribe. Plus, unless they do a free preview of the entire DDI, I'm not feeling really compelled to try paying for it.
Cheers
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5 years ago ::
Apr 02, 2008 - 5:23PM
#12
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Date Joined:
Dec 18, 2005
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Well, our old DM subscribed to the Dragon and Dungeon mags and we would look through them every game night. It was cool to look through the articles and artwork. I admit when I went to my local gamer shop, I loved paging through the mags, it kept me in the store longer.
What I've seen so far... it does suck. Fortunately for me, I love the other things that the DDI is offering, so I have my credit card ready to subscribe. If it would have ONLY been for the Dragon & Dungeon mags online, no way in hell I would pay. It's April already and it's very sad to see how little or not well presentated the DDI parts have been so far. Come on WOTC, will you show something to get the 4E haters to go... "that's nice or that's cool". They will never love anything, just get them to pause just once!
EK
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5 years ago ::
Apr 02, 2008 - 8:12PM
#13
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Of course it sucks. It's sucked since day one. I even submitted a question to that retarded Gamer Radio Ninja Cyborg Samurai 0 show that asked precisely when it was going to "dot dot dot, not suck?" The obvious answer is apparently NEVER.
The last year, WotC has been doing nothing but sticking its proverbial middle finger toward its customers. It's so far been turning D&D into something it's not, turning Forgotten Realms into something its not, letting various licenses to old favorite settings like Dragonlance expire, and then of course canceling the print mags and replacing them with this... amateurish... poorly laid out.... ****.
You can talk to me, but I won't promise to be nice.
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5 years ago ::
Apr 03, 2008 - 8:39AM
#14
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- Senior Volunteer Community Lead
- Dragon Slayer
- D&DI News Guide
Date Joined:
Aug 31, 2005
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Plus, unless they do a free preview of the entire DDI, I'm not feeling really compelled to try paying for it.
Cheers
Everyone will be able to get a 10-day trial to the service for free.
I'd suggest people "on the fence" not take their trial the day it opens, and instead let traffic stabilize before testing things out, as online services always have problems at launch.
Wolf Star76 Community Advocate (SVCL) for D&D Organized Play, Avalon Hill, and the DCI/WPN LFR Community Manager DDi Guide  Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Calorie Counter
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5 years ago ::
Apr 03, 2008 - 10:30AM
#15
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Date Joined:
Mar 31, 2008
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Another thought came to me while reading Eberronknight's post.
With Dungeon and Dragon no longer being published, it reduces the overall visibility of the game. Once upon a time, someone could have been looking for stuff to read on a plane ride or car trip, or just been passing by the magazine racks and had a cover catch their eye.
That, ideally, leads to more people picking up the magazine and trying out the game.
Maybe they had marketing data that confirmed that this wasn't happening, but it seems to me that it would be a worthwhile endeavor if there were any profit at all.
Of course, if they think that they can make that much more profit by getting people to pay the same price they were paying for the two magazines to get the electronic content, then more power to them. I just think it may be a bit short-sighted.
I would rather have the magazines in my hands and then maybe pay $5.00 a month for the electronic elements, depending on what they all end up being.
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5 years ago ::
Apr 03, 2008 - 11:52AM
#16
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Paper magazines please.
Failing that monthly PDFs.
Failing that at least an RSS/Atom feed for new content.
I don't mind the digital distribution mechanism if it's done right. However the technology isn't here yet. When E-Readers are cheaper, easy, and convenient and I can subscribe to content with them I'll be happy. We're in a technology trough atm though and digital distribution of this type of content doesn't quite cut it.
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5 years ago ::
Apr 03, 2008 - 3:26PM
#17
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Everyone will be able to get a 10-day trial to the service for free.
I'd suggest people "on the fence" not take their trial the day it opens, and instead let traffic stabilize before testing things out, as online services always have problems at launch.
What perhaps wait nine days for servers to settle in? You have mentioned WOW launch and others having problems. It indeed appears likely considering what little we know of current IT staff (if any) that there will be problems. There however is the point that one not reading history are doomed to repeat it. WotC already has their own history of self designed crash ,l hope they also know about WOW, et. el. about other crashes.
We need to see if they over compensate and provide a smooth transition/introduction or will choose to repeat history because they ignored it (Much like it appears we that post appear to be ignored).
Plans are always subject to change.
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5 years ago ::
Apr 04, 2008 - 7:21AM
#18
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- Senior Volunteer Community Lead
- Dragon Slayer
- D&DI News Guide
Date Joined:
Aug 31, 2005
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What perhaps wait nine days for servers to settle in? You have mentioned WOW launch and others having problems. It indeed appears likely considering what little we know of current IT staff (if any) that there will be problems. There however is the point that one not reading history are doomed to repeat it. WotC already has their own history of self designed crash ,l hope they also know about WOW, et. el. about other crashes.
We need to see if they over compensate and provide a smooth transition/introduction or will choose to repeat history because they ignored it (Much like it appears we that post appear to be ignored).
As someone who makes a living on IT, I can honestly say I, for one, don't know how to easily resolve issues surrounding an anticipated "boom" of bandwidth and resource demand.
Perhaps if you signed a special deal with your ISP (or a pair of ISPs if we want to be really paranoid - different paths, more redundancy, etc) to "rent" extra bandwidth for a couple months, but the cost expenditure to setup those circuits, espescially for a short period of time, I would expect to be crazy. (The cost of installing a circuit is usually made up for over the life of a 2-3 year contract).
Likewise, buying extra servers when you know you won't be needing them beyond a month or two is very cost-prohibitive in the short-term, especially to solve a problem that *should* go away after a month or so.
Admittedly, I've never launched an online service, much less one that was greatly anticipated, so I'm speculating and could be way off. . . but I can at least sympathize with the WotC IT Staff.
Especially as I expect they're understaffed and under-budgeted like most IT shops.
So, really, I expect the problem will come down to "sure, we can prevent the problem if we throw enough money at it" but WotC (or even more likely Hasbro) higher-ups won't see a profit motive in the decision and deny the expenditure.
Wolf Star76 Community Advocate (SVCL) for D&D Organized Play, Avalon Hill, and the DCI/WPN LFR Community Manager DDi Guide Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Calorie Counter
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5 years ago ::
Apr 04, 2008 - 12:18PM
#19
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Date Joined:
Jun 10, 2001
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With cloude computing and virtualization (similar to amazons EC2 service) i think it might be possible to solve most issues wizards will encounter... For something like WOW where there is intensive relatively full server load at all times on a large number of servers i'm not sure if something like this would be useful.
For the webapp stuff DDI is saying it will carry i think this would be a good solution... That being said who knows what they have actually looked into and found to be the best solution for them. I'm not sure what type of serverload they are anticipating from their online gaming table or voice chat stuff.
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5 years ago ::
Apr 04, 2008 - 1:20PM
#20
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WotC has done nothing since the announcement of 4E back at GenCon to instill confidence in their ability to run an e-zine that in any way is comperable to the standards set by the magazines. Added to Gleemax's stagnant state over the past 9 months and you have every reason to believe that WotC's proven track record of poor (miserable?) E-products will continue.
Its a real shame that instead of creating a sense of excitement and anticipation towards the upcoming launch of 4E's E-Dun and E-Drag, they have succeeded in creating a sense of forboding and resignation towards a product that will underwhelm.
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