Given the Pirates forced Wizards to take if offline, I'd think that maybe I did. Anyway, want to make a roll for initiative? I've just rolled that a Wandering Tarrasque has just seen you.CapnJack said:
Pirates Force D&D Books Offline
- Thread starter The_root_of_all_evil
- Start date
Which is pretty much what games workshop does. The one time I went to the effort to setup an army the rules had changed by the time I could play it.ElArabDeMagnifico said:
Obviously the easy way around this is to pick an older edition and stick with it. If a cool rule is added to the new edition add it as a house rule.
Haha @ the D&D stores.
The pirates will only have to settle for photocopies versions instead - or probally just PDFs someone leeks (leaks?).
Only one copy has to get out to one person before it can be all over the internet anyway - I'd be mildly suprised if this actually solved anything.
The pirates will only have to settle for photocopies versions instead - or probally just PDFs someone leeks (leaks?).
Only one copy has to get out to one person before it can be all over the internet anyway - I'd be mildly suprised if this actually solved anything.
The Dark Heresy books are worse (£27.99 for my 'Creatures Anathema' book which is not as thick as the PHB2), seriously RPG books have always been expensive, even if they don't really seem to need to be.iain62a said:
I seem to recall that there was a roleplaying game called 'Zero' which was about £30 and had very little content in it.
As for the DRM. It's a bit pointless by this point. PDF's of D&D stuff have been around for years, now. (Admittingly, I wasn't sure about 4th ed. but it seems to be one of the laws on the internet that if you pay for it in RL, you'll find it for free *somewhere* online...) I'm surprised Wizards took so long to notice. With all the dozens and dozens of books available for a game like Dungeons & Dragons there is a huge temptation to 'try before you buy' with a PDF just to see if a book will actually be useful to your gaming session... and then many players will look at the price tag and 'forget' to buy...
Also, these books already being all over the torrents - is this not like locking the stables after the horse has bolted?
I payed about 16.00 for my Player's Handbook in 86. After doing some math [http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi], I can say that 34.00 isn't a rip off, especially when the full set comes with a special price.Anton P. Nym said:
The real rip off is that I have to pay (nearly 170.00 USD) with VAT and other tariffs here to have these books shipped. Perhaps that is why some people decide to pirate rather than buy. I can't justify these prices to my woman, and worse than that, myself. And trust me, I am the master of convincing myself to spend money on crap I don't need.
That surely doesn't help. I think I started playing AD&D when I was 12 (that would have been 1987) and it was around 2000 when 3rd edition came out. Now its like every 6 months there is a new edition to play. TSR would put out their PHB and DMG out and then spend the next 10 years fleshing out the various campaigns. WOTC is just trying to put out as many books as they can....Its the EA of the Pen and Paper world. lol.ElArabDeMagnifico said:
Here's my problem with this. Yes, the print versions are incredibly high quality books with a lot of graphic detail, so yes, you are paying for that. I don't mind paying a lot for the print versions, I know I'm paying a lot for all the high quality paper and ink. But online, where they DON'T have all that stuff, it should not cost NEARLY as much.
Perhaps they should offer a sort of bare bones "textbook" lookin version, without all the art and crap. Dull it up as much as they can, sell it for half that godaweful price. And then alternativly, they can tart up the fancier editions, sell them as "collectors" or "premium" editions, and I garuntee it will generate sales.xitel said:
Selling people useless shit 101, make your useless shit 'premium' and people will fall over themselves to throw money down your trousers.
No. That simply isn't the case. If Wizards didn't expect an infinitely reproducible .pdf file was going to be found on P2P sites, then they clearly need to come out of the middle ages. But the real kicker in all this is that Wizards could ONLY HURT their sales by taking it offline, because the .pdf file was ALREADY on P2P, so taking it offline means that any legitimate consumer who wants a .pdf version either has to scan it themselves or download it illegally. Great idea - piss off the people who want an online version and refuse their $40! Where is the logic? It's not like taking it offline after the fact is going to reduce its ability to be infinitely copied. Way to cut off your nose to spite your face, guys.The_root_of_all_evil said:
You have a really skewed interpetation of what actually happened. Let me help you: the Wizards promoted piracy of their own product by reacting to a very normal situation in a very exaggerated way. You can go ahead blame all the problems in life on piracy, but until you realize that piracy is a natural, unstoppable force, and it's something that companies need to compete against rather than waste resources in a futile attempt to deter it, then you're going to continue to view situations like this one blindly.
Summary of Wizards of the Coast's stupidity:
- Wizards online .pdf file was pirated just like tons of others
- Wizards decided to take it down and cut off all legitimate consumers from the ability to buy it
- Wizards is considering DRM, even though that means that many legitimate consumers won't want it anyway, and will have more incentive to download the DRM-free version.
The thing with a book like this is that the fans who would buy it, will buy it regardless. They want it. The fans who don't want to buy it, weren't going to buy it in the first place, so you might as well not take action against them. You're likely to make money, at some point, off someone who actually cares enough to read a D&D book.
Not against zombies.CapnJack said:
Anyway, you have your view, I'll have mine; given I've got friends in TSR.
EDIT: sorry about the Necro, it came up in Related Content
why on earth would anyone buy an Ebook of D&D books? Those things have been online as long as there has been internet for free. In fact, even before 3rd edition came out, there was a full codex of 2nd edition books in HTML format online that was basically supported by TSR.
anyway, the only reason anyone pays for Dungeons and Dragons books these days is to feel the real book in their hands, and there IS value in that. Pirated Ebooks are ubiquitous in this industry, and I thought the companies understood that. It's difficult for most people to USE Ebooks in practice (like, at the table). That's true of pirated copies and legitimate copies. White Wolf seems to support it's pirates, as they're the ones actually keeping the company afloat. This is really the only industry where that's the definitely the case.
Everything else that's pirated is experienced in the same way as the retail product - movies, music, games. Books, and especially these game books, CANNOT be experienced in the same way as the retail product unless you actually buy the retail product. Why WoTC would even consider selling their books in Ebook format is beyond me.. It's like selling an audio CD that you can ONLY play in your CD-ROM.
PDFs of these game books are actually a healthy part of the industry, and everyone who plays will probably use them from time to time, especially those that are serious about the game.
why on earth would anyone buy an Ebook of D&D books? Those things have been online as long as there has been internet for free. In fact, even before 3rd edition came out, there was a full codex of 2nd edition books in HTML format online that was basically supported by TSR.
anyway, the only reason anyone pays for Dungeons and Dragons books these days is to feel the real book in their hands, and there IS value in that. Pirated Ebooks are ubiquitous in this industry, and I thought the companies understood that. It's difficult for most people to USE Ebooks in practice (like, at the table). That's true of pirated copies and legitimate copies. White Wolf seems to support it's pirates, as they're the ones actually keeping the company afloat. This is really the only industry where that's the definitely the case.
Everything else that's pirated is experienced in the same way as the retail product - movies, music, games. Books, and especially these game books, CANNOT be experienced in the same way as the retail product unless you actually buy the retail product. Why WoTC would even consider selling their books in Ebook format is beyond me.. It's like selling an audio CD that you can ONLY play in your CD-ROM.
PDFs of these game books are actually a healthy part of the industry, and everyone who plays will probably use them from time to time, especially those that are serious about the game.
Meh my comic book shop sells all the DnD books and figures 
but yeah ive not seen them anywhere else except online.
but yeah ive not seen them anywhere else except online.It's about as natural as any other form of thievery and as unstoppable as any other form of internet crime... meaning the proper methodology just hasn't been developed as of yet to combat it.CapnJack said:
And no matter what you or any pirate might say, digital IP owners think it is in their best interest to make pirates lives as miserable as possible... and sometimes annoy their clientelle, if need be.
Doesn't bother a pirate though. In the slightest. Even a teensy eensy little bit.cobrausn said:
The pirate who cracks something themselves, they enjoy doing it. Doesn't bother them. If it's harder, they get better props for doing it. Doesn't bother them at all.
The pirate who just downloads just had to go to a torrent site, type anything they want into the search.. download it, and run it.
The ONLY person who's bothered by DRM is the legitimate consumer. The people who buy the game, and have to put up with the DRM because it's the right thing to do.
Not really a decent programing manual will set you back $50-$75, and a school textbook could cost you $100-$150 or possibly more.iain62a said:
A good quality table book (coffee table book) could end up costing you $35-$55.
The DnD books have in the past been good quality books filled with illustrations, and designed to stand up to the constant handling they are going to receive, and like other handbooks they contain necessary information. Even at the end they only cost about $5-$10 more then a normal fiction hardback book.
The entire 4th edition is a rip off. They're wasn't anything wrong with 3.5, and after promises after promises that the changes from 3.5 to 4th wouldn't be that different, and you'd easily be able to convert, they release the pile of garbage that we see today. I can't recall exactly which book (either the DMG or the Monster Manual) but it states that you don't even need a DM anymore to play D&D you can just switch off someone else playing a monster and play that way. I mean seriously D&D is a table top fantasy RPG, RPG meaning ROLEPLAYING GAME. Anyways that was a little off topic.
Back on topic, Wizards has released more books since 4th edition has come out then they did with 3.5 and 3.0 combine almost already. If you compare the quality of the books going from 3.5 to 4th you can plainly see that they really dumbed down the game to the point where alot of the books aren't even worth the money. I mean I dled a pirated version of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for 4th, and then decided to go and buy it only because looking in a pdf for information is nice because it's easy, but having an actual book to look at sometimes is even nicer. And to my surprise the 1st chapter in the book isn't about the history of the realm or an explanation of the different deities or anything to really do with a wholeness of the realm, but instead is about Loudwater, a city located just below the High Forest. Chapter 2 starts with a bit of the core changes from looking at the PH1 and the FRCS. But you pick up the FRCS from 3.0/3.5 and compare it to 4.0 and it boggles the mind on why the new version has so much less information in it, and why it's so horribly organized. If I'm going to pirate any books it's going to be the 3.5 books because quite frankly it was a better game, and it's very hard to find those books now that they aren't being printed anymore.
Back on topic, Wizards has released more books since 4th edition has come out then they did with 3.5 and 3.0 combine almost already. If you compare the quality of the books going from 3.5 to 4th you can plainly see that they really dumbed down the game to the point where alot of the books aren't even worth the money. I mean I dled a pirated version of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for 4th, and then decided to go and buy it only because looking in a pdf for information is nice because it's easy, but having an actual book to look at sometimes is even nicer. And to my surprise the 1st chapter in the book isn't about the history of the realm or an explanation of the different deities or anything to really do with a wholeness of the realm, but instead is about Loudwater, a city located just below the High Forest. Chapter 2 starts with a bit of the core changes from looking at the PH1 and the FRCS. But you pick up the FRCS from 3.0/3.5 and compare it to 4.0 and it boggles the mind on why the new version has so much less information in it, and why it's so horribly organized. If I'm going to pirate any books it's going to be the 3.5 books because quite frankly it was a better game, and it's very hard to find those books now that they aren't being printed anymore.
The difference being that Microsoft actually gives you your money's worth when you buy a good version of Windows (for $200 for an honest copy of Win7 Pro, you power a computer for years. I personally find no quarrel with that price, especially since MS has to price based on a one-sale-per-customer model.) An e-book version of something like a D&D manual (where you're mostly paying for the high-quality craftsmanship of the printed book) should be a LOT cheaper, but it isn't.Abedeus said: