[4e?] - DDI Subscriptions - Questions

[Shadow_Elf]

I'm thinking of picking up a DDI Subscription, but I know that articles "expire" regularly, every two or three months. If I want to get all of this month's Arcane Supplementary articles (Familiar Expansion, White Lotus Academy etc.), is June 1rst too late to pick up a subscription?

Also, overall, have people found the subscription worthwhile? I've noticed that there's one or two articles I'm interested in each month, and thats about it, but I admit that I obviously haven't actually gotten to look at the ones that seem less interesting.

So, can anyone shed some light on how the DDI rollover works? Thanks.

[Hzurr]

DDI is definitely worth the money. I'm not sure what you mean about articles "expiring," because from what I've seen, I have access to...everything. Ever. The only time I could see an article expiring is after the book came out, and once it's in a book, you can access all the information in the compendium.

Honestly, the articles aren't worth the money, but the various tools are. The character creator is fantastic, and the rules compendium is very nice. Once the character visualizer and the virtual dungeon maker go online, things will be fully ultimate.

[Mystic Muse]

eh it depends pn how long you'll have it. one of the problems is you paid good money for a subscription but if ever you decide to get rid of said subscription everything you subscribed for is finito. I prefer just having a PDF file of the books aand if the dungeon builder isn't out yet I won't even consider getting it since I can just get all the books from my library anyways. now if it has every book from every edition I say go for it but if it's just 4th edition I say meh.

[Asbestos]

I find the articles a nice bonus.. but as Hzurr said the tools are what you really want. And... all of the feats/whatever in the Dragon articles show up in the DDI Character Builder and the Compendium as well.

June 1st shouldn't be a problem, I haven't seen anything expire as I still have full access to all of the Dungeon/Dragon articles published so far for 4e. So... if you join I guess you'll be able to DL all of those issues no problem.

[AgentPaper]

I'm not sure on the legality, but even if your subscription is up, I don't see why you couldn't keep using the character builder as you always have, the only problem being that you couldn't update it anymore. The compendium would probably be gone period, but just stopping your subscription doesn't mean WotC can magically wipe their stuff from your hard drive. And the character builder has pretty much everything in the compendium in it, though admittedly it's a tad harder to navigate.

[Beleriphon]

Keep in mind if you want the articles they are presented in PDF format so you can just download them. Like I've been doing. You also have access to the entire back catalogue of Dungeon an Dragon since DDI was started.

[RTGoodman]

Keep in mind if you want the articles they are presented in PDF format so you can just download them. Like I've been doing. You also have access to the entire back catalogue of Dungeon an Dragon since DDI was started.

Exactly. I believe they talked a while back about periodically removing old magazines, but I haven't seen that happen so I'm guessing they might have gotten rid of it.

I have to say, too, that D&DI is REALLY worth it. I mean, the magazines alone are worth the cost by themselves, as are the Tools (including the Compendium). I don't regret it a bit.

[Shadow_Elf]

I read somewhere that DDI was only going to provide the previous two months' articles to new DDI subscribers, to prevent people from getting a subscription for a month every year to get all the articles and update their apps and whatnot. Has WotC done that? I'm intrigued by all the stuff I've missed by not subscribing so far, but I'm really interested in whats been released this month, so I don't want to miss out.

[Gralamin]

I read somewhere that DDI was only going to provide the previous two months' articles to new DDI subscribers, to prevent people from getting a subscription for a month every year to get all the articles and update their apps and whatnot. Has WotC done that? I'm intrigued by all the stuff I've missed by not subscribing so far, but I'm really interested in whats been released this month, so I don't want to miss out.

Unless they did it in a way that makes a "Buy a year in advance" membership not count. then no, since I can still go and download the stuff All the way back to Dragon #364 as a single .pdf (First complete PDF, back in June 08). I can also still access all the pre-4e articles as well.

As for the updating Apps, implementing a slated update system where you only have access to things if you updated within certain day ranges would be pretty hard to implement, not to mention the problems it would cause when you download something that requires an update that happened before. It is unlikely this will ever happen, as it is an impractical solution.

[Mike_the_Mystic]

I'm subscribed, and I love it. I can't wait for the other stuff like the dungeon builder and character visualizer to come out, but in the meantime the Character Builder is just freakin' fantastic. It's all right there for you, character sheet, powers, feats. After about twenty minutes with it, I can make characters with ease (Which I really couldn't on Myth Weavers, but that's because I'm a bit inept at it). Its worth the subscription, in a nutshell.

[TheOOB]

Me personally, I have problems paying a monthly fee for a program that should have a static cost. The character builder is wonderful(i have the demo), but if that is primary what you are using it would get very expensive over time, when it should have a flat cost of $20 or so.

[Charity]

Youi can subscribe for 1 month, download the character generator, and the cancel/fail to renew your subscription.
You cannot update it, but until a book comes out that you are interested in who cares.
once or twice a year is all a patient man needs to get the character builder... I dunno if the other tools will be any different, but if not then I foresee a flurry of short term subscriptions.

[Beleriphon]

Youi can subscribe for 1 month, download the character generator, and the cancel/fail to renew your subscription.
You cannot update it, but until a book comes out that you are interested in who cares.
once or twice a year is all a patient man needs to get the character builder... I dunno if the other tools will be any different, but if not then I foresee a flurry of short term subscriptions.

Yep, for the low cost of $7.95 you get all of the magazines to June '08 to the time you subscribe, the character generator with all updates for the books released to the time you subscribe, and if you don't renew the character generator still works and so do all of those downloaded PDFs, you just can't get the new stuff.

[Oracle_Hunter]

once or twice a year is all a patient man needs to get the character builder... I dunno if the other tools will be any different, but if not then I foresee a flurry of short term subscriptions.

Fortunately, I'm sure WotC has noticed that the people who do buy longer-term subscriptions tend to just renew automatically. Provided these "suckers" keep making up for the free riders, WotC probably won't bother with fixing this issue.

Otherwise, we're going to see another silly DRM-style "protection" system, which makes life suck for everyone :smallyuk:

Oh, if only WotC made a subscription to Dragon/Dungeon magazine worth a year-long subscription! :smallsigh: