Here we are, four months later. Let's look at the D&D Insider Membership trend to see how the dire prediction played out:
The red blob shows the CB release, note the underlying membership spike there, followed by nothing but a steady upward trend.
Guess who IS 100% happy? Hasbro.
If i am not mistaken, Josh said they were given access to the Tools, but were never given membership that would transpire in those statistics.
*In the short-term, we will be temporarily be granting access to the online Character Builder to all beta participants.
* In the short-term, we will be temporarily be granting access to the online Adventure Tools to all beta participants.
What metric are you using to assess DnDinsider-ship? If you're using the number of members in the DnDinsiders group, your chart is flawed, as people aren't automatically removed from that group after they've stopped subscribing. Personally, I am still a member of the DnDinsiders group despite having left back in November.
Can you still view the group? Other people have reported that they are in fact removed and can not view the group and it's not listed in their groups on their profile.
I see 48,533 potential D&D players
What metric are you using to assess DnDinsider-ship? If you're using the number of members in the DnDinsiders group, your chart is flawed, as people aren't automatically removed from that group after they've stopped subscribing. Personally, I am still a member of the DnDinsiders group despite having left back in November.
Can you still view the group? Other people have reported that they are in fact removed and can not view the group and it's not listed in their groups on their profile.
I looked at his profile and D&DInsider is not among his "My Groups".
I want to point out something else about the data: in addition to its lack of source, it has nothing to compare to -- what was the increase in membership compared to last year, for instance.
Hm. DnDinsiders has disappeared from my active groups, but I got the email about the new monster builder dedicated to DnDi members, and I can't see the DnDinsiders group of anyone (Such as Plaguescarred) else, either. If I'm still on their email list, I assume I'm still listed in the group.
I want to point out something else about the data: in addition to its lack of source, it has nothing to compare to -- what was the increase in membership compared to last year, for instance.
There have been broadcasts since then, so possibly you got that during some overlap time.
If you can't see a Private Group, most likely you're not part of it anymore.
But there might be a delay before loosing your DDi icon and getting booted out of the DDi Group.
Receiving Broadcast only mean your Forum Profile as communication opted in. ( wizards.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wizards.cfg...)
If you can't see a Private Group, most likely you're not part of it anymore.
But there might be a delay before loosing your DDi icon and getting booted out of the DDi Group.
I'm not talking about broadcasts, but actual emails. In addition, I already have forum communication opted out, so there should be *no* reason to recieve emails of any kind of announcements, and yet I am.
Receiving Broadcast only mean your Forum Profile as communication opted in. ( wizards.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wizards.cfg...)
If you can't see a Private Group, most likely you're not part of it anymore.
But there might be a delay before loosing your DDi icon and getting booted out of the DDi Group.
I'm not talking about broadcasts, but actual emails. In addition, I already have forum communication opted out, so there should be *no* reason to recieve emails of any kind of announcements, and yet I am.
Well, you aren't part of the group anymore, and there have been communications since then.
There is an overlap period from when you quite and when you are removed.
Receiving Broadcast only mean your Forum Profile as communication opted in. ( wizards.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wizards.cfg...)
If you can't see a Private Group, most likely you're not part of it anymore.
But there might be a delay before loosing your DDi icon and getting booted out of the DDi Group.
I'm not talking about broadcasts, but actual emails. In addition, I already have forum communication opted out, so there should be *no* reason to recieve emails of any kind of announcements, and yet I am.
Well, you aren't part of the group anymore, and there have been communications since then.
There is an overlap period from when you quite and when you are removed.
I quit in *November*, and got an email *yesterday*. I think 4 months is a bit longer than the overlap period.
Receiving Broadcast only mean your Forum Profile as communication opted in. ( wizards.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wizards.cfg...)
If you can't see a Private Group, most likely you're not part of it anymore.
But there might be a delay before loosing your DDi icon and getting booted out of the DDi Group.
I'm not talking about broadcasts, but actual emails. In addition, I already have forum communication opted out, so there should be *no* reason to recieve emails of any kind of announcements, and yet I am.
Well, you aren't part of the group anymore, and there have been communications since then.
There is an overlap period from when you quite and when you are removed.
I quit in *November*, and got an email *yesterday*. I think 4 months is a bit longer than the overlap period.
what exactly did the email say?
D&D Insider Announcement: Get Ready for the New D&D Monster Builder Coming Next Week!
It must be:D&D Insider Announcement: Get Ready for the New D&D Monster Builder Coming Next Week!
Dear D&D Insider™ Subscriber,
On March 22, Wizards of the Coast will begin rolling out the new web-based Adventure Tools for D&D Insider, starting with the launch of the brand new D&D Monster Builder. Creating new monsters, customizing existing ones and building your adventures will be easier than ever before. On launch day, just log in to your D&D Insider account, click on the Adventure Tools button and give the new Monster Builder a try.
Here are some additional highlights:
- · New Design: Completely redesigned, the new Monster Builder will debut with 3,700 monsters - including Dark Sun Creature Catalog and Monster Vault entries.
- · No Download: The Monster Builder is served from the D&D site
- · PC and Mac Compatible: Requires an Internet connection and Silverlight plug-in
- · Import Function: You can easily import your content created in the previous version to the new version
- · Save Functionality: All content you create is saved to our database and is accessible through your D&D Insider account
If you have any questions about the new Character Builder or your subscription, see the FAQ or contact a Game Support Representative.
That graph is surprisingly smooth. What is the data?
It looks smooth at first glance, but is in fact not a straight line. I would like to know the source of the data as well. Not doubting, but a graph like this has no value without quoting the data source.
Take from that what you will. It's clear that the two numbers are only linked tangentally (it's possible, for instance, to be a member and not have an account on the boards so you will not be represented among the group members. It's also possible that people aren't being removed from the group properly. Who knows?). It also loses meaning by not having much context (year over year would have been better).
But it still has meaning: the "end of the world" never happened. DDI is getting better (even the quality of magazine content is getting better IMO, even if deadlines are being missed) and the number of subscribers are joining at a steady clip. It might even have broader implications for the game itself (Essentials may very well have brought a lot of new players into the game who are now getting DDI memberships).
Of course, like everything else we "discuss" on these boards, reality probably lies between two extremes.
It's the number of members in the DDI group. The source is these boards I would assume (he probably compiled the data himself from the number that appears on the board).
Take from that what you will. It's clear that the two numbers are only linked tangentally (it's possible, for instance, to be a member and not have an account on the boards so you will not be represented among the group members. It's also possible that people aren't being removed from the group properly. Who knows?). It also loses meaning by not having much context (year over year would have been better).
But it still has meaning: the "end of the world" never happened. DDI is getting better (even the quality of magazine content is getting better IMO, even if deadlines are being missed) and the number of subscribers are joining at a steady clip. It might even have broader implications for the game itself (Essentials may very well have brought a lot of new players into the game who are now getting DDI memberships).
Of course, like everything else we "discuss" on these boards, reality probably lies between two extremes.
But without the context of numbers in the months before the announcement, the graph (pretty as it may seem) is useless. If the rate of new DnDi subscribers has halved since the anouncement, this graph wouldn't show that. (And by my quick math, the gain over the past 5 months is less than the past 2 years on a per month basis)
Its a "smashing success"? Ok put some effort into your troll and bait and I might bite.
Well this tread might prove some interesting entertainment for a while...let me get my list of haters out and keep score as they check in.
Reporting for duty as requested. You can mark me off your list lol.
It's the number of members in the DDI group. The source is these boards I would assume (he probably compiled the data himself from the number that appears on the board).
Take from that what you will. It's clear that the two numbers are only linked tangentally (it's possible, for instance, to be a member and not have an account on the boards so you will not be represented among the group members. It's also possible that people aren't being removed from the group properly. Who knows?). It also loses meaning by not having much context (year over year would have been better).
But it still has meaning: the "end of the world" never happened. DDI is getting better (even the quality of magazine content is getting better IMO, even if deadlines are being missed) and the number of subscribers are joining at a steady clip. It might even have broader implications for the game itself (Essentials may very well have brought a lot of new players into the game who are now getting DDI memberships).
Of course, like everything else we "discuss" on these boards, reality probably lies between two extremes.
But without the context of numbers in the months before the announcement, the graph (pretty as it may seem) is useless. If the rate of new DnDi subscribers has halved since the anouncement, this graph wouldn't show that. (And by my quick math, the gain over the past 5 months is less than the past 2 years on a per month basis)
DDi has shown an increase in subscriptions steadily since they started taking money. There has never been a noticable dip do to people leaving.
You didn't received it Dane ? E-mail says:Dear D&D Insider™ Subscriber,
On March 22, Wizards of the Coast will begin rolling out the new web-based Adventure Tools for D&D Insider, starting with the launch of the brand new D&D Monster Builder. Creating new monsters, customizing existing ones and building your adventures will be easier than ever before. On launch day, just log in to your D&D Insider account, click on the Adventure Tools button and give the new Monster Builder a try.Here are some additional highlights:
- · New Design: Completely redesigned, the new Monster Builder will debut with 3,700 monsters - including Dark Sun Creature Catalog and Monster Vault entries.
- · No Download: The Monster Builder is served from the D&D site
- · PC and Mac Compatible: Requires an Internet connection and Silverlight plug-in
- · Import Function: You can easily import your content created in the previous version to the new version
- · Save Functionality: All content you create is saved to our database and is accessible through your D&D Insider account
If you have any questions about the new Character Builder or your subscription, see the FAQ or contact a Game Support Representative.
It could be in my mailbox, I don't check that one a lot.
DDi has shown an increase in subscriptions steadily since they started taking money. There has never been a noticable dip do to people leaving.
Yeah, Wizards has nothing to fear - they couldn't make people quit if they tried.
@Veok: the numbers in September, before the announcement, are consistent with the graph (September 15th, for instance, was 39,566).
Well this tread might prove some interesting entertainment for a while...let me get my list of haters out and keep score as they check in.
I was thinking the same thing.
Not that I'm co-signing the op's graph - I'm not sure where those numbers could even be found.
Well this tread might prove some interesting entertainment for a while...let me get my list of haters out and keep score as they check in.
I was thinking the same thing.
Not that I'm co-signing the op's graph - I'm not sure where those numbers could even be found.
Group membership numbers are listed on the group page for DDI. Whether they're entirely accurate is another question, given the variable delays in being removed from the group when a subscription lapses, but you can see the membership count for any group by going to the group page.
Pardon me ? I know, frothsof is a Sage you'll say. Well, he has it all for himself pretty boy
Can you call it a success when we read posts from Jan that we will see content each day and yet until a couple of days ago there was only one dragon article up and it was a short editorial.
Subscriptions may be up however by almost any measure quality is down. Is that a success?
Fewer articles, long waits for material to migrate to the CB, MIgrated material in the CB incomplete and the compendium not updating.
You may be making lots of money, however I don't think you are successful at anything else.
I too would like to see the source of that data, even if we can't see all the datapoints.
In the meantime I'll give the OP the benefit of the doubt. Otherwise, the only response would be DENY DENY DENY DENY LALALALALA IS NOT HAPPENING LALALALALA 
OP: where did you get that data from?
But it still has meaning: the "end of the world" never happened. DDI is getting better (even the quality of magazine content is getting better IMO, even if deadlines are being missed) and the number of subscribers are joining at a steady clip. It might even have broader implications for the game itself (Essentials may very well have brought a lot of new players into the game who are now getting DDI memberships).
Of course, like everything else we "discuss" on these boards, reality probably lies between two extremes.
This ... +100
spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AkIQHt2...
There are your data points that I've collected. I didn't bother including the time of day when i got the data point.
Basically, I'm seeing a steady 40% annualized growth rate here. which amazes me, cause I think the "product" is junk. (The builder, Dragon, etc). But I'm obviously in the wrong business, because that's a great growth rate...
I've been trying to keep similar data.
spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AkIQHt2...
There are your data points that I've collected. I didn't bother including the time of day when i got the data point.
Basically, I'm seeing a steady 40% annualized growth rate here. which amazes me, cause I think the "product" is junk. (The builder, Dragon, etc). But I'm obviously in the wrong business, because that's a great growth rate...
I bet it never crossed anyone mind that because they reveal the numbers it might be in WotC favor to 'pad' the numbers a bit? You know to look successful and not scare Hasbro off or potential customers. I'm still waiting for all those people with their subscriptions set to not autorenew to hit. That's where you'll see a drop...
But without the context of numbers in the months before the announcement, the graph (pretty as it may seem) is useless. If the rate of new DnDi subscribers has halved since the anouncement, this graph wouldn't show that. (And by my quick math, the gain over the past 5 months is less than the past 2 years on a per month basis)
The graph doesn't have anything to do with the pigeon hole you are trying to squeeze it into. The haters said total subscriptions would fall. They haven't. End of story.
I've been trying to keep similar data.
spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AkIQHt2...
There are your data points that I've collected. I didn't bother including the time of day when i got the data point.
Basically, I'm seeing a steady 40% annualized growth rate here. which amazes me, cause I think the "product" is junk. (The builder, Dragon, etc). But I'm obviously in the wrong business, because that's a great growth rate...
I bet it never crossed anyone mind that because they reveal the numbers it might be in WotC favor to 'pad' the numbers a bit? You know to look successful and not scare Hasbro off or potential customers. I'm still waiting for all those people with their subscriptions set to not autorenew to hit. That's where you'll see a drop...
If we were going to see a drop, we would have.
Either we are staggeringly incorrect or the data is wildly inaccurate. If the data is wrong and the number does reduce as people leave the group, then nothing will ever cause a drop in membership.
The graphs validity is mostly in question because it doesn't ever drop, even by a little. That's just not realistic for this type of service. If you take a look at the subscription rates for popular MMOS they rise and fall all the time, for example. Further, it doesn't make sense with what we've been told: if WotC has been doing this kind of business with DDI, why in the world would they have made such a radical shift away from a business model that was growing at such an impressive rate? Where are the losses due to piracy? Where are the guys that subscribe for a month then quit?
Kilpatds is right, the growth rate just isn't realistic, even for a service that's a smashing success. 40% growth per year requires a massive direction shift? What?
By contrast, the group "Dungeons and Dragons" has 4431 members. Wouldn't we expect this number to be higher? I never joined this group btw, I was assigned to it automatically when I got my DDI membership, so under the assumption that all past-and-current DDI forum goers are members of this group but are automatically removed from the DDI group when they let their subscription lapse, but not D&D, then the D&D group should never be lower than DDI, unless for some reason DDI group members feel the need to delete themselves from the D&D group for some reason.
So there's definitely something wrong with this data.
Project for someone who has the time and inclination: discover who is in the DDI group but not the D&D group and find out why. Should hopefully provide some answers as to why this data isn't making sense.
And Veok is not a member of DDi, so people are removed from the group.
it made me an automatic member without me joining
My guess would be something else you did made you a member. "Something" that I did not do.
well im glad people are joining, its the first advice i give new players
I do as well!
+1
Sorry Damon_Tor. I am a DDi Member, but not a Dungeons & Dragons member. There seems to be no automatic join to D&D for DDi members.
The way the forums assign and unassign members to groups isn't constant or predictable: I was added to D&D without my knowledge or input at the same time I was added to DDI. I was removed from DDI when I let my sub lapse, but there was a 2 week lag after my sub lapsed and my losing my red dragon icon, and even then I remained a member of the DDI group for at least another couple weeks (I'm not sure when it dropped me)
So whatever the system is, it's not a very good one.
it made me an automatic member without me joining
When you sign up for DDi, you don't automatically get a forum account, you do have to sign up for that. When you sign up for a forum account and have DDi you are automatically in the DDi group, and you can't leave it, unlike other groups.
That's why it takes a few weeks for a person to get dropped from the group, the same time it takes for the icon to go away. It's an automated system. Why it takes a few weeks, who knows. Maybe it's to give people some time to reconsider, since it's pretty clear, we are all prone to over reactions and probably lots of people change thier mind and resubscribe after a cooling off period.
So, there are likely people that have a DDI account, but not a forum account and there for not showing up in the group.
As for leaving DDi and still being in the group. The simple thing is this. Join a group, and then leave.
I've left a few groups, and I no longer show up in those groups. I doubt they have rigged the DDI group to show a false higher number, like some are suggesting.
I also doubt we are ever going to see a dip because of autorenews being turned off. It would have happened already. People say they turned their autorenew off all the time, and not everyone's subscription is set to the same date. People's subscriptions are ending all the time and it doesn't seem to have the effect some are suggesting.
it made me an automatic member without me joining
My guess would be something else you did made you a member. "Something" that I did not do.
When did you join DDI? Maybe there were periods of time when they weren't doing the auto-assignment to D&D. I didn't join until Dec 2009, and it was doing it then, so unsure. I noticed Dane is also DDI without D&D. Any idea when he joined DDI? Maybe it was those who joined really early? It would explain the ~5000k member discrepancy anyway.
When you sign up for DDi, you don't automatically get a forum account, you do have to sign up for that. When you sign up for a forum account and have DDi you are automatically in the DDi group, and you can't leave it, unlike other groups.
See, that's one of the things that's confusing about this data: they treat the DDI group differently than every other group. Why do they make it so you can't leave it?
I doubt they have rigged the DDI group to show a false higher number, like some are suggesting.
I doubt that too, but it's entirely possible the way they set up the group makes that number innaccurate for whatever reason, not in an attempt to decieve, but just a bug: ie, actual current members at 40k, displayed members at 49k because the 9k members who have quit are never subtracted from the total.
You've got to admit, even with your bias (not using that in a negative, I have a bias too), would you expect to see a membership of this type never ever drop?
I'm not sure about Dane, but I joined immediately when DDi became available. I did however have a lapse of about a week around the OCB release.
Huh. Not sure what to make of that without others in your situation chiming in. A casual glance at posters' profiles shows the vast majority of DDI members are in the D&D group.
I'm not sure about Dane, but I joined immediately when DDi became available. I did however have a lapse of about a week around the OCB release.
Huh. Not sure what to make of that without others in your situation chiming in. A casual glance at posters' profiles shows the vast majority of DDI members are in the D&D group.
I think a vast majority of DDi members are not in the D&D group given the 44,000+ difference in membership. Even if the ~49,000 number of DDi members is somewhat inflated, heck even if it is double what it really is, there are only 4,400 D&D members.
I think the social networking aspect of the boards is what has been a failure. DDi members are autojoined to the DDi group, but the generic D&D group has less then 4,500 members. I think my assesment is a reasonable one. Why else would Gleemax have failed?
What is odd to me is the smoothness of the graph, you don't get any sudden jumps like when they anounced the CB works with Macs, or the VT, etc. Nor do you see any drops, and we know people have been leaving. It could just be down to the number of data points sampled (so any drop is lost in the rise, and any sharp rise is lost because the points are too far apart).
We do suspect that the D&D Insider group only reflects people who are board members and D&DInsider members and we have seen a number of new poster recently joining just to complain, tell us they are cancelling or ask about what's going on in the magazines, so that's going to affect the figures as well.
Still definiate upward trend which is impossible to deny. Unless it really doesn't show when people leave the group, which wouldn't actually be that surprising seeing as you take no action in joining the group and don't actively leave it by pressing the Leave Group button. If you never press the Leave Group button does it actually register you leaving the group, even though you might be denied access (because it could check your Insider status, just to grant access).
Still you compare the figures on this with the 246,011 people that like D&D on Facebook and god knows how many people that actually play the game there is a huge number of potential customers that they just aren't attracting.
When you sign up for DDi, you don't automatically get a forum account, you do have to sign up for that. When you sign up for a forum account and have DDi you are automatically in the DDi group, and you can't leave it, unlike other groups.
See, that's one of the things that's confusing about this data: they treat the DDI group differently than every other group. Why do they make it so you can't leave it?I doubt they have rigged the DDI group to show a false higher number, like some are suggesting.
I doubt that too, but it's entirely possible the way they set up the group makes that number innaccurate for whatever reason, not in an attempt to decieve, but just a bug: ie, actual current members at 40k, displayed members at 49k because the 9k members who have quit are never subtracted from the total.
You've got to admit, even with your bias (not using that in a negative, I have a bias too), would you expect to see a membership of this type never ever drop?
I would suspect they set it up to always be a member of DDi, so they can do announcements via that way. The problem is they have never really taken advantage of that. However it's not entirely WoTC's fault. Even though many people ask for better communication, and to have updates and news set to them, they then opted out for receiving broadcasts and such. You really can't win.
And the reason you can't quit, is because then to get back into the group (if you decide you want back in), you would have to contact someone to get reinstalled. It's set up so as to not create more work for someone. It's really probably something as simple as that. Make it auto, make it so you can't leave while still a member. And then there is a few weeks overlap from the day your subscription ends.
I doubt there are 9k people stuck in the group who aren't members.
People are just going to have to stop inventing possible senerios as to the numbers. If anything the number is probably higher. Two of my players have DDi and don't have forum accounts.
But to say that the group is rigged, on purpose or accidently, well, that's sounds more like people just refusing to accept that DDi membership is growing.
Whatever the real number is, it's clear, it's growing. That's all that matters to WoTC and Hasbro.
Whatever the real number is, it's clear, it's growing. That's all that matters to WoTC and Hasbro.
So what worries me if it is clear it is growing, why do you want to invest less, so that all these new peoples first experience of being an Insider is constant missed deadlines?
Whatever the real number is, it's clear, it's growing. That's all that matters to WoTC and Hasbro.
So what worries me if it is clear it is growing, why do you want to invest less, so that all these new peoples first experience of being an Insider is constant missed deadlines?
Stuff happens. Each person has to decide how much each part is worth them.
Like I've said, I like the magazines, but they aren't a main concern of mine.
I would suspect many people consider the magazines a bonus, and really just care about the tools.
As for missing dates. Sure it sucks. But no one died or lost thier job or anything horrible if they miss a date. It just means later.
The problem is many of us don't like waiting, because we've come to think we shouldn't have to wait.
EDIT: I will say, at this particular time, WoTC really seems to be missing alot of dates, and THAT is bad, because it seems to be across the board. Not to mention progress on the tools is so slow.
Regardless though... I am happy to see that they are moving forward with the VT table. I have found an alternative that works great with my group, RPTools, so I no longer have a personal interest in the VT.
But its good to be reading people happy with it (for the most part, bugs excluded it is a beta after all) and finding utility with it.
DMApple: I see you are a DDI member again? I thought you quit over the magazine problems
Two of my players have DDi and don't have forum accounts.
This goes for me as well. I DM a group of 6 players, and of the 4 who have DDi subscriptions only 1 has an account on these forums.
I'll add into the side of scepticism of how smooth the graph is. It should be spikey in either direction up or down around the CB going to online and the VT announcements invites and tests.
If you read the OP closely enough you would see there is a spike around the CB going online, but it is covered up by the red mark indicating the CB going online.
The red blob shows the CB release, note the underlying membership spike there, followed by nothing but a steady upward trend.
There isn't going to be any huge dip when people stop auto renewal, because that would mean everyone signed up near the same time, and got the same amount of time. That clearly didn't happen.
So, DDi is a success, it makes money for WoTC, the more it grows, the more they can do with DDi, because that's how business works. The more profit a product makes from year to year, the bigger the budget it is given.
DMApple: I see you are a DDI member again? I thought you quit over the magazine problems
I did and I got a refund.... and for some reason I'm still a member.
Perhaps they mistakenly gave me a refund for the months from November when they stopped providing the service I was expecting, instead of the refund for the remaining months until my membership expired, which was what I had asked for (I thought I was pretty clear). I think it works out about the same anyway.
But I got into the Beta as well so perhaps I'm a member because of that? Who knows.
So, DDi is a success, it makes money for WoTC, the more it grows, the more they can do with DDi, because that's how business works. The more profit a product makes from year to year, the bigger the budget it is given.
You would think, but has the D&DI recouped the losses of the development of the 3D table and character visualiser that never saw the light of day? Then how much have they been spending reinventing the wheel with the online versions of the old tools.
There certainly seems to be a lack of resources at the moment, compared with say six months ago (where they should have actually have been busier as they were working on two sets of tools at the same time, and a magazine twice it's current size). So some how they have half the workload yet are missing more of the deadlines... weird.
I'd be curious to know what the line was like before the move to an online CB, was the climb as steady then, had it levelled out?
So, DDi is a success, it makes money for WoTC, the more it grows, the more they can do with DDi, because that's how business works. The more profit a product makes from year to year, the bigger the budget it is given.
You would think, but has the D&DI recouped the losses of the development of the 3D table and character visualiser that never saw the light of day? Then how much have they been spending reinventing the wheel with the online versions of the old tools.
There certainly seems to be a lack of resources at the moment, compared with say six months ago (where they should have actually have been busier as they were working on two sets of tools at the same time, and a magazine twice it's current size). So some how they have half the workload yet are missing more of the deadlines... weird.
I'd be curious to know what the line was like before the move to an online CB, was the climb as steady then, had it levelled out?
Recoop of costs for the 3D table was taken into account 3 years ago. More then likely it was written off as a loss, and the new DDi modle has a different business plan and budget. That doesn't mean it didn't hurt WoTC, it did. I'm sure Hasbro wasn't happy.
The current income from DDi goes towards what they budgeted for the past year, not what happened 3 years ago.
Really, there isn't a need to find a reason to prove DDi is failing or not doing as good as people want, just because you personally feel screwed, hurt and want revenge on WoTC for failing you. Because that's how it all comes across. I say that because people who are doing this always jump from one point to another trying to be right, as if being right once, makes them right all the time.
I'm upset, I'm frustrated, but I'm not going to invent reasons or speculations to get back at WoTC. When the time comes that I am not getting anything of value, I will just leave DDi. I'm not there. Yet.
I don't like what the numbers say... but I can't find any rational basis to discount them.
You'll notice I'm not a subscriber: I have to ask people for the current number to update my data. I unsubscribed because of the decline in Dragon culminating in the tools Charlie Foxtrot. Now that, from reports, the online builder is reaching beta status (still no house-rule support, and that's a hard requirement), I'm staying unsubscribed because the Dragon content has moved from "slipping" to "complete joke"
But ... the number of members in the group increases. Possible Reasons:
- People don't get Unsubscribed when they leave
Nope. I left, and got removed from the group. The first time I left, it took two weeks to get removed from the group. The second time I left (got a 1-month sub for the Monster Builder update. Whoops) it happened near instantaniously. - The member count is buggy (caching bug)
Possible, but not plausible. The way web-apps work, the easiest way of doing that is a DB query ("select count(1) from group_members where group_id = ?"). Caching that is unlikely, and caching it in a buggy manner would be difficult.
I also have seen that other groups have accurate member counts, and that the member counts do decrease when people are removed from them. - The member count is deliberately inflated
Possible, but not plausible. Besides it being a potential stock-holder fraud issue, the forums are outsourced to "One Site". Adding a group-specific hack around for fraudulent purposes, between separate companies, would require a degree of shared malevolence between the two companies unsupported by any evidence. And stupidity (see earlier lawsuit reference)
So in absense of any other theories, I have to conclude that the most probable explanation of the data is that the DDI membership is growing on about a 40% annualized basis, despite a complete and total lack of value.
The second most-plausible theory is that some portion of the increase is driven by existing members creating forum accounts for the purpose of complaining. However, if that were a relevant source of the increase, I think we'd have seen the grown rate level off... It's been months since the value of DDI started to plummet.
First, it does seem far too smooth. real world applications are almopst never this smooth, unless someone is picking and choosing numbers. This problem has been partially resolved, because we have sources and datapoints. still, it does seem to be an unlikely data distribution for such a short period of time.
Second, the period of time being looked at is short. It is hard to make a real judgement about a fiscal trend based on a 4 month data set. it's strictly short term, and it doesn't provide much in the way of context.
Third, some of the data has to be influenced by context. The graph starts around the christmas shopping season, when money starts to get tight. In addition, it doesn't take into account any drops due to the decreasing quality of the CBC. It's possible that much of the growth is people coming back because they now have a builder that is being updated.
This is not to say that it doesn't contradict the gloom and doom by the haters. I'm just saying that there are valid reasons not to take the graph as a definitive proof of success for the OCB.
On another front, I would advise new players to play for a couple of months without the builder--both to appreciate it, and to show them that they can play without it.
He's just showing that each month the number of members, is going up. That's all.
There is no reason to doubt that really.
I think the disconnect here is in the title of the thread. The OP chose to use a funny phrase "smashing success," and several people here are trying to prove that the graph doesn't show DDi is a "success" for several varying reasons. However, apart from the comedic title of the thread, I think the only thing the OP was trying to prove with his graph was that the nay sayers were wrong in that there was no drop in membership due to the OCB, but in fact membership continues to grow.
Exactly.
Would people have looked if the title was:
DDI growing steadily, seems those who suggested it might not were incorrect in their suggestions.
As a guy who's been collecting those numbers...
Possible Reasons:
- People don't get Unsubscribed when they leave
Nope. I left, and got removed from the group. The first time I left, it took two weeks to get removed from the group. The second time I left (got a 1-month sub for the Monster Builder update. Whoops) it happened near instantaniously.- The member count is buggy (caching bug)
Possible, but not plausible. The way web-apps work, the easiest way of doing that is a DB query ("select count(1) from group_members where group_id = ?"). Caching that is unlikely, and caching it in a buggy manner would be difficult.
I also have seen that other groups have accurate member counts, and that the member counts do decrease when people are removed from them.- The member count is deliberately inflated
Possible, but not plausible. Besides it being a potential stock-holder fraud issue, the forums are outsourced to "One Site". Adding a group-specific hack around for fraudulent purposes, between separate companies, would require a degree of shared malevolence between the two companies unsupported by any evidence. And stupidity (see earlier lawsuit reference)
Here's another theory: the data doesn't accurately represent the total number of insiders, but rather shows an increase of insiders with forum accounts. For all we know, the membership numbers are pretty constant, just more and more people are registering to the forums to complain / troubleshoot / share advice, etc
And speaking from a programming standpoint, it would be rather inefficient to update all the group member counts whenever the number changed; just recalculate all groups every few hours to save extraneous server calls.
Really, there isn't a need to find a reason to prove DDi is failing or not doing as good as people want, just because you personally feel screwed, hurt and want revenge on WoTC for failing you.
Don't really want revenge, I actually want to see it succeed, I'm just not willing to pay for this period of development, where all they seem to be doing is trying to get back to where they were six months ago.
As a guy who's been collecting those numbers...
Possible Reasons:
- People don't get Unsubscribed when they leave
Nope. I left, and got removed from the group. The first time I left, it took two weeks to get removed from the group. The second time I left (got a 1-month sub for the Monster Builder update. Whoops) it happened near instantaniously.- The member count is buggy (caching bug)
Possible, but not plausible. The way web-apps work, the easiest way of doing that is a DB query ("select count(1) from group_members where group_id = ?"). Caching that is unlikely, and caching it in a buggy manner would be difficult.
I also have seen that other groups have accurate member counts, and that the member counts do decrease when people are removed from them.- The member count is deliberately inflated
Possible, but not plausible. Besides it being a potential stock-holder fraud issue, the forums are outsourced to "One Site". Adding a group-specific hack around for fraudulent purposes, between separate companies, would require a degree of shared malevolence between the two companies unsupported by any evidence. And stupidity (see earlier lawsuit reference)
Here's another theory: the data doesn't accurately represent the total number of insiders, but rather shows an increase of insiders with forum accounts. For all we know, the membership numbers are pretty constant, just more and more people are registering to the forums to complain / troubleshoot / share advice, etc
And speaking from a programming standpoint, it would be rather inefficient to update all the group member counts whenever the number changed; just recalculate all groups every few hours to save extraneous server calls.
See what I mean. You provide logic to one point and so lets switch points. If 50 it's growing at 50 people a day, and most of them are only doing so to complain, lets say 35, we would see a HUGE influx of that on the forums. And we clearly are NOT seeing that.
Nor are we seeing an increase of that amount to troubleshoot or share advice.
You are welcome to hate DDi, if that's your thing, but come on, it's growing. There is no denying it.
Here's another theory: the data doesn't accurately represent the total number of insiders, but rather shows an increase of insiders with forum accounts.
I believe that is exactly the case.
But given the long duration of consistent member growth, how are you suggesting that it has diverged from subscriber growth?
For all we know, the membership numbers are pretty constant, just more and more people are registering to the forums to complain / troubleshoot / share advice, etc
Oh, yeah. That was my last paragraph. You trimmed it out. I don't consider that likely either, because of the duration of the growth curve.
And speaking from a programming standpoint, it would be rather inefficient to update all the group member counts whenever the number changed; just recalculate all groups every few hours to save extraneous server calls.
Really? Count(1) is pretty darn quick in most DBs, since the Indexs used know the answer.
Now, they are doing a lot of aggressive caching of some things, and it looks like triggered cache invalidations (edit a post twice in quick succession, see how the second edit still shows the original content), so that's plausible. But that mostly explains why the number didn't change for a few hours for DMaple, not why there would be any systemic bias.
See what I mean. You provide logic to one point and so lets switch points. If 50 it's growing at 50 people a day, and most of them are only doing so to complain, lets say 35, we would see a HUGE influx of that on the forums. And we clearly are NOT seeing that.
Actually, right around the "moving the CB to online" Charlie Foxtrot, I did notice a large influx of low-post-count complainers...
But that was months ago now. I'm not noticing a steady stream of them now.
Actually, right around the "moving the CB to online" Charlie Foxtrot, I did notice a large influx of low-post-count complainers...
But that was months ago now. I'm not noticing a steady stream of them now.
This is only tangentially related: What do you mean by Charlie Foxtrot?
And speaking from a programming standpoint, it would be rather inefficient to update all the group member counts whenever the number changed; just recalculate all groups every few hours to save extraneous server calls.
Really? Count(1) is pretty darn quick in most DBs, since the Indexs used know the answer.
Now, they are doing a lot of aggressive caching of some things, and it looks like triggered cache invalidations (edit a post twice in quick succession, see how the second edit still shows the original content), so that's plausible. But that mostly explains why the number didn't change for a few hours for DMaple, not why there would be any systemic bias.
I know that it's pretty commonly used for thread viewcounts - they at least, are going to be getting updated a lot more often than group joining / leaving - and I am making the assumption that if you're already updating *part* of the database it's easier to do it all in a single update call, rather than have several separate functions handling the same things for different cases.
This is only tangentially related: What do you mean by Charlie Foxtrot?
Charlie Foxtrot is military alphanumerics. =C.F. Which is usually translated as Cluster F...
I know that it's pretty commonly used for thread viewcounts - they at least, are going to be getting updated a lot more often than group joining / leaving - and I am making the assumption that if you're already updating *part* of the database it's easier to do it all in a single update call, rather than have several separate functions handling the same things for different cases.
Well they probably do schedule those kind of updates (although I know that when I test joined and left a smallish group, it updated the membership count in real time, or nearly so). However, assuming that the data driving the graph wasn't collected second-by second, it wouldn't really matter - every few days should be enough time to make sure group membership counts are updated.
You can check this, though...get the number right now, then leave the group and have another group member tell you what the number is. Assuming nobody joined in the second you left, the number might update. You can leave the DDI group, it's just that the departure is temporary (lasts about a day, last I tried).
Really, there isn't a need to find a reason to prove DDi is failing or not doing as good as people want, just because you personally feel screwed, hurt and want revenge on WoTC for failing you.
Don't really want revenge, I actually want to see it succeed, I'm just not willing to pay for this period of development, where all they seem to be doing is trying to get back to where they were six months ago.
Then why do you need to keep attacking them? It's your right of course, but you've stopped paying, you've gotten a refund, and made it clear.
But you still seem to have a need to come and throw rocks at DDi.
Most everyone else will say "that's interesting, where are those numbers from?" and go back to playing.
Without source data to back it up the only thing this tells me is that people with a preconception will look at it and see what they want to see. The "haters" will see some paranoid conspiracy to pad the numbers cause the whole world is out to get them. The "fanboys" will see it as hard evidence that justifies their position that they are right in loving DDi.
Most everyone else will say "that's interesting, where are those numbers from?" and go back to playing.
Really? And what if you aren't a fanboy or a hater? I think people that are neither might just have an opinion.
Without source data to back it up the only thing this tells me is that people with a preconception will look at it and see what they want to see. The "haters" will see some paranoid conspiracy to pad the numbers cause the whole world is out to get them. The "fanboys" will see it as hard evidence that justifies their position that they are right in loving DDi.
Most everyone else will say "that's interesting, where are those numbers from?" and go back to playing.
Really? And what if you aren't a fanboy or a hater? I think people that are neither might just have an opinion.
Yeah, really. And you're right, of course they have an opinion. My opinion is it's interesting but I'd like to see the numbers, and this thread has brought out the fanboys and haters and gave them and everyone else a chance to interpret it based on their preconceptions, as I expected it to. That's even more interesting than a graph with no source.
Haven't you realized by now Dane? Everyone here IS EITHER A FANBOY OR A HATER!
Sometimes both! Show
Google Docs is kinda busted exporting thisimage, so ...
Google Docs is kinda busted exporting thisimage, so ...
I posted a link to my numbers, which results in a graph very similar to the OPs...The problem is, of course, that we don't have the actual numbers, and are so having to use a proxy instead. Which raises issues about the accuracy of the proxy.
However ... as mentioned above, I'm unable to find plausible explanations to suggest any bias in the proxy, so I'm willing to accept it as representative. In which case, despite horrible treatment of the tools, a complete failure in new content and otherwise completely horking the value of DDI, it's growing like gangbusters.
I'm in the wrong field.
Again, I still think there is something fishy about the graph. That doesn't mean I think it's incorrect, just that the smoothness of the graph, without any visible dips at all, seems a little fishy.
However, as I said before, the evidence does seem to suggest that enrollment is up. It's bizarre, but strange things happen all the time.
I wonder if a bug in the group membership number reporting is to blame. Has the number ever actually gone down, at all? I'm suspicious that maybe the number represents the total amount of members ever to have been in the group, rather than the total number of members currently in the group. If that IS the case, it's pointless tracking it, let alone graphing it.
Yes, the data seems too smooth to me too.
But I still find "it's accurate" to be the most plausible result. Testing in other groups shows an accurate member count. Yes, members get removed from the group. From a programming perspective, that would be an unlikely bug to create. From a legal perspective, that would be an extremely unlikely bug to deliberately introduce.
But I still find "it's accurate" to be the most plausible result.
I guess that would make it "fake but accurate" then.
OP needs to post his data or get reduced to 0 hp with fire and acid.
As pointed out, it's simply the D&D Insider forum group membership number, grabbed only occasionally and irregularly. It's smooth because of sparse data points connected with a smoothed line. This obviously isn't intended for a peer-reviewed scientific publication, only for your consumption and all of our entertainment. I had actually simply been noting the values as comments, here if you want to see them.
Pretty interesting questions brought up about how the Insider membership on the forum actually works. Surely some of the tens of thousands of us could (but won't?) cough up accurate daily membeship data since inception.
I've been trying to keep similar data.
spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AkIQHt2...
There are your data points that I've collected. I didn't bother including the time of day when i got the data point.
Basically, I'm seeing a steady 40% annualized growth rate here. which amazes me, cause I think the "product" is junk. (The builder, Dragon, etc). But I'm obviously in the wrong business, because that's a great growth rate...
Yep, I am in total agreement with you. I stopped subscription a few months back and have zero regrets. I keep checking in here to see if there is anything compelling to come back to, and find it's just not there. I wonder if I am still in the DDI group. I'll have to look.
Then why do you need to keep attacking them? It's your right of course, but you've stopped paying, you've gotten a refund, and made it clear.
But you still seem to have a need to come and throw rocks at DDi.
Things don't tend to improve, if they think people are happy with what they are getting.
But I still find "it's accurate" to be the most plausible result.
I guess that would make it "fake but accurate" then.
Did you not notice where I posted my data? Google docs spreadsheet? It looks lumpier because it's not a smoothed line, but it's still pretty darn smooth, and it's the raw data.
Please look at it, and explain why it's more plausible that it's fake than that it's real.
Then why do you need to keep attacking them? It's your right of course, but you've stopped paying, you've gotten a refund, and made it clear.
But you still seem to have a need to come and throw rocks at DDi.
Things don't tend to improve, if they think people are happy with what they are getting.
And that's where you always loose me.
I'm happy with what I am getting. I want more, and I'm getting tired of the time passing to get that.
But for what I pay for, and what I get, I'm happy.
You seem to want to discount people like me, and I'm not the only one, and try and paint this picture that everyone is getting screwed. Only if your standards are applied to everyone. But everyone has thier own standards.
And that is why I see it as revenge, you keep trying to paint these big pictures of thousands of people afraid to speak up who are unhappy.
I wonder if a bug in the group membership number reporting is to blame. Has the number ever actually gone down, at all?
Yes. On September 14, 2010, the number was 39,567. On September 15, 2010, the number was 39,566. So it does decrease.
Strange as it may seem, it could just be that DDI is doing readonably well, I guess. I wouldn't begrudge WotC that... much. It would be a lot less galling if it were a high-quality service, but if they are able to persuade customers that it's worthwhile, that's fine. If people see it as good value for money, that's entirely up to them.
Strange as it may seem, it could just be that DDI is doing reasonably well, I guess.
But then why would they change it so drastically? Why would they tinker with a formula that operates on a 40% growth annually?
Strange as it may seem, it could just be that DDI is doing reasonably well, I guess.
But then why would they change it so drastically? Why would they tinker with a formula that operates on a 40% growth annually?
Because WotC has proven, time and again, that they are largely Chaotic Capitalist. They love to see the money come in, but they just can't seem to do it in any sort of orderly fashion. They see big growth now, and assume that the need to move to protect that growth... And yes, DDI is growing, but I want to see the long term trends, and how it will handle in the future when the new tools are operating for a while and people find the limitations and features, and see what the reaction is.
For me to trust a graph of this nature, however, I'd want to see the full lifespan of DDI to this point presented. All the ups and downs. I wouldn't trust a graph that showed only a steady decline over a short time period either - Who knows what outside influences there could be.
Strange as it may seem, it could just be that DDI is doing reasonably well, I guess.
But then why would they change it so drastically? Why would they tinker with a formula that operates on a 40% growth annually?
Basically, either the graph is hinky, the data are hinky, or WotC are idiots.
Well, I know which option of those seems most likely...
Strange as it may seem, it could just be that DDI is doing reasonably well, I guess.
But then why would they change it so drastically? Why would they tinker with a formula that operates on a 40% growth annually?
Basically, either the graph is hinky, the data are hinky, or WotC are idiots.
Well, I know which option of those seems most likely...
Or there's something besides this data we don't know and thus cannot take into account.
Strange as it may seem, it could just be that DDI is doing reasonably well, I guess.
But then why would they change it so drastically? Why would they tinker with a formula that operates on a 40% growth annually?
Basically, either the graph is hinky, the data are hinky, or WotC are idiots.
Well, I know which option of those seems most likely...
The OP *did* say that it was infrequent points joined with a smooth curve. That will, by it's very nature, remove all of the dips and valleys that may have occurred in the subscription numbers.
But then why would they change it so drastically? Why would they tinker with a formula that operates on a 40% growth annually?
Basically, either the graph is hinky, the data are hinky, or WotC are idiots.
I like your summation.
The OPs graph is hinky, because it has too few data points. However I have a lot more data points, and it does not change the underlying view. So it's not that.
The data can be hinky, because it's based on a proxy, and there could be some sort of systemic bias between the proxy and the desired value. I have not found any plausible explanation I like to explain that bias, but that doesn't mean there isn't one.
But finally ... .... I think it's really easy to show in other places that WotC are idiots. So that explanation seems the most plausible to me.
Or there's something besides this data we don't know and thus cannot take into account.
Ah, the world of known unknowns and unknown unknowns...
But I still find "it's accurate" to be the most plausible result.
I guess that would make it "fake but accurate" then.
Did you not notice where I posted my data? Google docs spreadsheet? It looks lumpier because it's not a smoothed line, but it's still pretty darn smooth, and it's the raw data.
Please look at it, and explain why it's more plausible that it's fake than that it's real.
I was talking about the OP's graph - it was a joke. IOW, I didn't know whether it was made up data or not, but I still believed it reflected reality.
For those who don't know - "fake but accurate" is a quote referring to the GW Bush Air National Guard documents controversy. I won't explain the politics of it but the gist of that was that even if the documents were faked, some believe they showed the truth of what really happened in Bush's Air National Guard career, therefore they weren't really a lie. (please, please don't argue this issue, this was just for explanation of my quote.)
No gamers are 100% (or 90%?) happy with the new Character Builder. Before and after its unveiling on November 16, there were many threats of dropping the Insider subscription and predictions that membership would plummet, if not immediately, then certainly as renewals came up in the months to come.
Here we are, four months later. Let's look at the D&D Insider Membership trend to see how the dire prediction played out:
The red blob shows the CB release, note the underlying membership spike there, followed by nothing but a steady upward trend.
Guess who IS 100% happy? Hasbro.
It seems to match and reflect my sporatic sampling of the DDI Group as well:
- DDI Sept 15: 39,566 members
- DDI Sept 25: 40,016 Members
- DDI Oct 09: 40,621 Members
- DDI Oct 16: 41, 006 Members
- DDI Oct 25: 41, 372 members
- DDI Nov 24: 42, 956 members
- DDI Dec 19: 44,088 members
- DDI Dec 30: 44,502 members
- DDI Jan 22: 45,711 members
- DDI Feb 05: 46,458 members
- DDI Feb 18: 47,234 members
- DDI Mar 13: 48,702 members
Errating and irregular (pulled when I remember) but showing consistant growth.
What was the subscriber level in July 2010?
No gamers are 100% (or 90%?) happy with the new Character Builder. Before and after its unveiling on November 16, there were many threats of dropping the Insider subscription and predictions that membership would plummet, if not immediately, then certainly as renewals came up in the months to come.
Here we are, four months later. Let's look at the D&D Insider Membership trend to see how the dire prediction played out:
The red blob shows the CB release, note the underlying membership spike there, followed by nothing but a steady upward trend.
Guess who IS 100% happy? Hasbro.
It seems to match and reflect my sporatic sampling of the DDI Group as well:
- DDI Sept 15: 39,566 members
- DDI Sept 25: 40,016 Members
- DDI Oct 09: 40,621 Members
- DDI Oct 16: 41, 006 Members
- DDI Oct 25: 41, 372 members
- DDI Nov 24: 42, 956 members
- DDI Dec 19: 44,088 members
- DDI Dec 30: 44,502 members
- DDI Jan 22: 45,711 members
- DDI Feb 05: 46,458 members
- DDI Feb 18: 47,234 members
- DDI Mar 13: 48,702 members
Errating and irregular (pulled when I remember) but showing consistant growth.
You could have 75,000 total DDi members but only 50,000 forum members.
When a lot of DDi members sign up to the forums (whether they complain, or just remain silent and never post) that 50,000 will go up. It might hit 55,000. Then the total 75,000 could go down to 60,000 and even though our graph would show an increase, it wouldn't be accurate. Please note that all of the above numbers are made up and don't in any way reflect reality.
Disclaimer: "We are not responsible for anything at any time" (there I just saved you 10 minutes reading time on any standard EULA)
That's all that matters.
The acuracy of the graph, the number of unknown subscribers, or whatever, doesn't matter.
Heck for what DDi is, 50,000 is amazing number of subscriptions, considering that for something like a MMO, 100,000 subscribers is considered very good. So yeah, DDi is successful.
We don't really need an exact body count or a more interesting looking graph to understand, 50,000 subscribers equals a success for WOTC.
And thats the underlying problem...
You could have 75,000 total DDi members but only 50,000 forum members.
When a lot of DDi members sign up to the forums (whether they complain, or just remain silent and never post) that 50,000 will go up. It might hit 55,000. Then the total 75,000 could go down to 60,000 and even though our graph would show an increase, it wouldn't be accurate. Please note that all of the above numbers are made up and don't in any way reflect reality.
It's an approximation of reality and a fair guage. The number are going up, and doing so at a regular rate. While there might be long-time subscribers who are not forum members, there's no reason to suspect they're changing their mind at a regular rate and joining the community. That strikes me as a statistical minority. There's no reason not to believe the vast majority of the new subscribers are either brand new subscriber or returning subscribers.
And six months still isn't necessarily enough time. When I joined I enabled 6month (or maybe yearly) renewals. Immediately after the online CB I terminated renewals. I am *still* a DDI member currently as my renewal date hasn't lapsed. There may be a large number who chose longterm renewals.
Quite possibly. However, the opportunity for a drop was back in October, when the waves of 1-year subscriptions, bought before the price increase and first CB back in 2009, started expiring. It was the first time they'd have seen a price increase AND there was no renewal push to increase (or re-increase) the value of DDI. If it was going to drop it would have been then.
If they signed-up for 3-months and had been dissapointed by the lack of VTT or online monster builder they would have dropped in February.
But the numbers keep going up.
Even at 50,000 subscribers, it's still a success. That's around 350,000 each month. That's millions a year.
That's all that matters.
The acuracy of the graph, the number of unknown subscribers, or whatever, doesn't matter.
Heck for what DDi is, 50,000 is amazing number of subscriptions, considering that for something like a MMO, 100,000 subscribers is considered very good. So yeah, DDi is successful.
We don't really need an exact body count or a more interesting looking graph to understand, 50,000 subscribers equals a success for WOTC.
Arguably, a good book sells 50k copies. So Dragon is selling as well as a good HC each and every month. And it doesn't require paper or printing or shipping so the initial cost is lower.
But it also sells at 1/4 the price...
It's an approximation of reality and a fair guage. The number are going up, and doing so at a regular rate. While there might be long-time subscribers who are not forum members, there's no reason to suspect they're changing their mind at a regular rate and joining the community. That strikes me as a statistical minority. There's no reason not to believe the vast majority of the new subscribers are either brand new subscriber or returning subscribers.
There's no proof either way. Absence of evidence doesn't mean one view or the other is right, it means that things are inconclusive. This is the cornerstone of structured experimental thought: correlation does not imply causation.
Arguably, a good book sells 50k copies. So Dragon is selling as well as a good HC each and every month. And it doesn't require paper or printing or shipping so the initial cost is lower.
But it also sells at 1/4 the price...
But it also provides WotC with hard data on how much they are getting a month in the future.
It's an approximation of reality and a fair guage. The number are going up, and doing so at a regular rate. While there might be long-time subscribers who are not forum members, there's no reason to suspect they're changing their mind at a regular rate and joining the community. That strikes me as a statistical minority. There's no reason not to believe the vast majority of the new subscribers are either brand new subscriber or returning subscribers.
There's no proof either way. Absence of evidence doesn't mean one view or the other is right, it means that things are inconclusive.
Right, there is no proof. Which is why I applied logic: it's arguable that the long-time subscriber has no reason to suddenly become a community member. Their situation has not changed. A sudden and abrupt cause-less change in behaviour is unpredictable and likely rarer, and thus more of an annomaly than a rule. And certainly would not be regular and would show other patterns (spikes during convention season where they join to hear news, spikes during holidays when they have extra free time, etc). It would not likely have the uniform progression we are seeing, which is more likely the result of new and returning subscribers.
This is the cornerstone of structured experimental thought: correlation does not imply causation.
That doesn't quite apply in this situation as there is no correlation as there is only the one recordered factor: the numbers are going up. We're discussing a hypothesis based on the only known data. Which is unfortunetly not a testable hypothesis.
Arguably, a good book sells 50k copies. So Dragon is selling as well as a good HC each and every month. And it doesn't require paper or printing or shipping so the initial cost is lower.
But it also sells at 1/4 the price...
They took care of the 1/4 the price issue by only including about 1/8 the quality. Without all the worry about putting out good content, they've cheapened the production cost of the little content they put out to the point where they're able to turn massive profits off of it.
I really do worry for the future of book productions, because there's no way they can compete with the small production costs of a fully online "product".
Arguably, a good book sells 50k copies. So Dragon is selling as well as a good HC each and every month. And it doesn't require paper or printing or shipping so the initial cost is lower.
But it also sells at 1/4 the price...
50,000 book sales compared to 50,000 monthly accounts, two different things... mind you. A hard back, 20-30 bucks, so a year of DDi, is like 3-4 hard back books.
Which they also sell. Not this year though.
That is all it does.
We can extraporlate that a rise in forum subscriptions corresponds to a rise in actual subscriptions but that doesn't necessarily hold true.
That said 50k subscribers to the forum is still impressive, even if most are lapsed users of the forum.
I do agree with the OP ddi is a success.
What I'm not sure about is how big of a success.
I only really used the old character builder, with occasional forays into the Compendium to look up obscure rules. So, when they killed the CB (The FLGS I play at doesn't have wifi access, nor am I going to shell out hundreds more for a mobile internet stick), I just washed my hands of the whole mess.
I stil get to say the new online builder sucks, though.
If the VT is decent, and there's a new offline builder, I'd be tempted to resub. But as things stand now, the VT would have to hand out free handjobs and email me chocolate chip cookies for me to even consider it.
What galled me most about the "new" character builder was that it just was the old character builder, but online, and with a silverlight GUI.
Except buggier, and lacking features.
The graph shows a consistent rise in the number of DDI subscribers that are joining the forums. That is all it does.
There is no proof of this one way or the other so you cannot claim it as fact. Without a statement from WotC we don't know if the DDI group represents:
1) All DDI memberships
2) Only DDI memberships that have registered for the forums.
Because of this your conclusion is just speculation based on the assumption that #2 is the correct assessment. Because if #1 is the correct version then the OP is exactly right.
The graph shows a consistent rise in the number of DDI subscribers that are joining the forums. That is all it does.
There is no proof of this one way or the other so you cannot claim it as fact. Without a statement from WotC we don't know if the DDI group represents:
1) All DDI memberships
2) Only DDI memberships that have registered for the forums.
Because of this your conclusion is just speculation based on the assumption that #2 is the correct assessment. Because if #1 is the correct version then the OP is exactly right.
Only we do know that Only DDi membershops that have also registered for the forums show, because we have been told that in the past.
Some of us try and keep updated about what's going on.
The graph shows a consistent rise in the number of DDI subscribers that are joining the forums. That is all it does.
There is no proof of this one way or the other so you cannot claim it as fact. Without a statement from WotC we don't know if the DDI group represents:
1) All DDI memberships
2) Only DDI memberships that have registered for the forums.
Because of this your conclusion is just speculation based on the assumption that #2 is the correct assessment. Because if #1 is the correct version then the OP is exactly right.
Only we do know that Only DDi membershops that have also registered for the forums show, because we have been told that in the past.
Some of us try and keep updated about what's going on.
Well excuse me for not knowing (having read) everything since time began. /sacrasm
The graph shows a consistent rise in the number of DDI subscribers that are joining the forums. That is all it does.
There is no proof of this one way or the other so you cannot claim it as fact. Without a statement from WotC we don't know if the DDI group represents:
1) All DDI memberships
2) Only DDI memberships that have registered for the forums.
Because of this your conclusion is just speculation based on the assumption that #2 is the correct assessment. Because if #1 is the correct version then the OP is exactly right.
Only we do know that Only DDi membershops that have also registered for the forums show, because we have been told that in the past.
Some of us try and keep updated about what's going on.
Well excuse me for not knowing (having read) everything since time began. /sacrasm
OR
You could say thanks for that information. You spoke up as if you had the facts, you did not.
Some of us try and keep updated about what's going on.
Thanks for the info. Perhaps next time you can provide it without the insult.
Thanks for the info. Perhaps next time you can provide it without the insult.
Your mistake was trying to argue with Dane.
FWIW, I unsubbed in Feb, still have access (from the Beta? I dunno?) and am still part of the D&Dinsider group.
It all depends on how you unsubscribed.
If you cancelled the auto-renew, then you will be a DDI member, have access to the DDI group and have access to the beta until your subscription expires. If, on the other hand, you asked for the rest of your subscription to be refunded, and your membership stopped immediately, that traditionally happens immediately. The last option is that your subscription ran out, and you have simply not renewed it. There is typically, people have noticed, a week or two grace period before people whose subscriptions have ended have their priviledges removed.
OP: Hasbro is 100% happy. So they arent bothered by anything else like perhaps book cancellations and delays in magazine articles?
Hasbro would only be happy if D&D made those books and they sold. The economy's not the best right now, and not even D&D can keep up the breakneck release pace they had at the launch of 4E until recently. And wallets, including mine, can't keep up too easily these days. As for delays in the articles, one of WotC_Trevor's posts outlined that (I'd link to it if I could remember which post). Basically, they have a more rigorous review process because they were unhappy with some of the content quality last year, and they're still adjusting to the longer process. He also mentioned they should be caught up by the end of this month. Higher quality articles overall help sell DDI subscriptions & renewals. Selling more subscriptions also makes Hasbro happy.
So no, they're not bothered.
The graph shows a consistent rise in the number of DDI subscribers that are joining the forums. That is all it does.
There is no proof of this one way or the other so you cannot claim it as fact. Without a statement from WotC we don't know if the DDI group represents:
1) All DDI memberships
2) Only DDI memberships that have registered for the forums.
Because of this your conclusion is just speculation based on the assumption that #2 is the correct assessment. Because if #1 is the correct version then the OP is exactly right.
Only we do know that Only DDi membershops that have also registered for the forums show, because we have been told that in the past.
Some of us try and keep updated about what's going on.
Well excuse me for not knowing (having read) everything since time began. /sacrasm
OR
You could say thanks for that information. You spoke up as if you had the facts, you did not.Some of us try and keep updated about what's going on.
Thanks for the info. Perhaps next time you can provide it without the insult.
Kenjoon,
Just wanted to say that while I often disagree with you, I find your ideas very rational and interesting and in everything we have discussed you have done so in a productive manner that generated further discusion.
I respect you as a frequent poster and someone who cares about the game and the forums.
Kenjoon,
Just wanted to say that while I often disagree with you, I find your ideas very rational and interesting and in everything we have discussed you have done so in a productive manner that generated further discusion.
I respect you as a frequent poster and someone who cares about the game and the forums.
Thanks.
Those numbers seem really odd considering the massive number of people on annual subscriptions that signed up when Insider was first released and when the CB was first unveiled. You'd expect a large dip in ANY subscription service on the anniversary of a significant event. People sign up for those events but do not drop out until their subscriptions end.
As an example, The CB BEeta went live in December 2008. A very large spike in Insider memberships occured then according to statements by WotC. Many of those were annual subscriptions. Many of them renewed in summer 2009 to take advantage of the lower rates before the cost increase. If you expect to see typical annual attrition events, you'd expect to have seen a dip in 2010 around the anniversary of the CB. Also, you'd have expected to see a dip around the anniversary of Insider going live in October.
Weird. To see such a gradual growth when there should have been two significant annual anniversary events that impact subscriptions in a negative fashion is kind of shocking.
I work with social stats for a living. For anyone curious, here's a professional view of what an accurate view of subscriptions would be:
1. Data range- Two years of monthly numbers before the release of the Online CB, and all months afterwards.
2. Decide whether to count paid D&D subscriptions or to count number of members of the D&D community who belong to the DDI group. As a professional, I would count the paid subscriptions.
3. Each month defined as 12:00:00.0 AM on the first of the month, Pacific Time, to 11:59:59.9 of the last day of the month.
4. Line graph 1- number of new subscriptions per month.
5. Line graph 2- number of cancelled/unrenewed subscriptions per month.
6. Line graph 3- Turnover. Add lines 1 & 2.
7. Line graph 4- number of renewals.
8. Bar Graph- Total Subscriptions at the end of the month: add line graphs 1 & 4, minus the new ones that didn't stay until the end of the month.
There is also still the matter of interpreting the data. If LG1 and LG2 are both high, and LG4 is low, then the core fanbase is leaving and being replaced. If LG1 and LG2 are high, and LG4 is high, the core fanbase is mostly present, while new people are leaving quickly.
And D&D won't be releasing information like this... ever. It's part of their business plan, and they still have to compete in the gaming market. We may or may not ever know how accurate the data in the OP is, but the point, I think, is still valid: the new online CB did not have the dooming effect many feared.
I work with social stats for a living. For anyone curious, here's a professional view of what an accurate view of subscriptions would be:
1. Data range- Two years of monthly numbers before the release of the Online CB, and all months afterwards.
2. Decide whether to count paid D&D subscriptions or to count number of members of the D&D community who belong to the DDI group. As a professional, I would count the paid subscriptions.
3. Each month defined as 12:00:00.0 AM on the first of the month, Pacific Time, to 11:59:59.9 of the last day of the month.
4. Line graph 1- number of new subscriptions per month.
5. Line graph 2- number of cancelled/unrenewed subscriptions per month.
6. Line graph 3- Turnover. Add lines 1 & 2.
7. Line graph 4- number of renewals.
8. Bar Graph- Total Subscriptions at the end of the month: add line graphs 1 & 4, minus the new ones that didn't stay until the end of the month.
There is also still the matter of interpreting the data. If LG1 and LG2 are both high, and LG4 is low, then the core fanbase is leaving and being replaced. If LG1 and LG2 are high, and LG4 is high, the core fanbase is mostly present, while new people are leaving quickly.
And D&D won't be releasing information like this... ever. It's part of their business plan, and they still have to compete in the gaming market. We may or may not ever know how accurate the data in the OP is, but the point, I think, is still valid: the new online CB did not have the dooming effect many feared.
Pretty much the data usage is dead on... naturally, its all pretty much internal data that would not be shared with the general populace. And... it does appear that the online CB didn't sink the ship.
You'll notice I'm not a subscriber: I have to ask people for the current number to update my data. I unsubscribed because of the decline in Dragon culminating in the tools Charlie Foxtrot. Now that, from reports, the online builder is reaching beta status (still no house-rule support, and that's a hard requirement), I'm staying unsubscribed because the Dragon content has moved from "slipping" to "complete joke"
Quoted for truth.
I'm still getting broadcasts from the DDI group even though I quit over the character builder getting cancelled and the lack of Dragon content, but who knows if they're including that in the forum size value? Has anyone enumerated all the user accounts in the group?
I have no doubt that the new structure is successful in preventing PIRACY... and thereby increasing the number of subscriptions...
The failures in the CB are losing potential and new 4e players....
A group that does not build, will decay and die. I'm happy WOTC will have more income, they may want to hire some programmers, not web designers (but, at least its pretty... *golf clap* ).. but as I watch new player growth in our area decrease, and people fall to the side.. I still need the old CB to throw a net.
and yes.. at 15 pages of discussion.. I only glanced.. but the first page was.. motivational.. so if someone else covered it... sorry.. paint me troll and give me a ethernet bridge.
and again I say... if the GSL wasn't so vague and overbearing, a community solution would have emerged.. but since they are beating up their own customers for participation, it is NOT UNREASONABLE to expect them to meet the responsibility that they ripped from the hands of the players and DMs.
So, bravo... use that income to make the tools functional.. print options... come on.. need the VB code for it, i have 5 minutes.. (yes its probably c#, dont really care, but if you have a toolbox and only use a screwdriver because its shiny, have fun nailing up plywood...)
Yes... need decaf... and yes I believe that not reading a bill in congress you vote on should be high treason and punishable by hanging.
Steven
I have no doubt that the new structure is successful in preventing PIRACY... and thereby increasing the number of subscriptions...
No they just keep use the old character builder that is still being updated faster than the new one.
It's been about as effective as removing the PDF was at preventing piracy. It's a speed bump and nothing more, if anything less, as I'm sure people that can't legally buy PDF's now download the pirated ones as there is nothing else available. I suspect that some people that now don't have a character builder that supports their house rules now update their offline builder with new content illegally.
I think that's what annoys me more than anything, all this was done to prevent piracy, but all it seems to have done is encourage it, and in the meantime it's the honest people that paid their subscriptions that are suffering.
I have no doubt that the new structure is successful in preventing PIRACY... and thereby increasing the number of subscriptions...
No they just keep use the old character builder that is still being updated faster than the new one.
It's been about as effective as removing the PDF was at preventing piracy. It's a speed bump and nothing more, if anything less, as I'm sure people that can't legally buy PDF's now download the pirated ones as there is nothing else available. I suspect that some people that now don't have a character builder that supports their house rules now update their offline builder with new content illegally.
I think that's what annoys me more than anything, all this was done to prevent piracy, but all it seems to have done is encourage it, and in the meantime it's the honest people that paid their subscriptions that are suffering.
+1
Look, I'm not happy with the speed at which things are going. I'm not happy with the lack of tool variety. I'm not happy they are working on the VT over these other tools, even though I understand they need the VT.
I'm not happy with how they are handling things lately.
But why is it so hard for people to simply accept that subscription numbers are growing, that there isn't some bug in the group that keeps the count of anyone that was in the group at one point.
They have more then a decent amount of subscriptions for the type of service they offer. Regardless of what you thing about the service.
So chill.
I suspect a lot of it is a cross between wishful thinking and incredulity--wishful thinking, because we know if numbers actually are going up, WOTC will beleive they are justified despite the outcry against their decisions, and incredulity that it is growing despite, or worse, because of these changes and poor release products.
I really don't know what you are trying to say. No snark, I just can't figure out what you are saying.
Is it wishful thinking that the numbers are going up?
Just because the numbers are going up, doesn't mean WoTC is going to justify their actions, they did that before anything came out, they set thier course, failed, changed, changed again without telling anyone and then changed yet again.
Nothing we said had ANY effect. In that aspect, they really don't listen to us.
That's what I'm saying, actually. that WOTC is justified in ignoring what we say because their bottom line is doing just fine without it.
And that the reason that we keep trying to come up with reasons why this data is innacurate is that we really don't want that to be true.
...But why is it so hard for people to simply accept that subscription numbers are growing, that there isn't some bug in the group that keeps the count of anyone that was in the group at one point...
Why was it so hard to accept the glove did not fit OJ?
Because it just doesn't make sense.
When WotC started Insider there were a huge number of subscribers that did an annual subscription. Many more started when the CB went live, also with an annual subscription.
Many of those people reupped for a second year before the rates increased.
Over the 14 to 18 months that occured between the deadline for the rate increase and the end of those 2 year subscriptions, many of those players quite D&D or otherwise found themselves in a situation where renewing made no sense. Some left college and got jobs that ate all their free time. Others were frustrated at WotC and turned to Pathfinder. Others just decided to save their money. One was abducted by aliens.
Regardless, you should have seen two SIGNIFICANT dips in subscrption around October and December, whether those dips were a decrease in the increase in subscriptions or were actual reductions in the total subscription numbers.
We saw neither dip.
If the stats don't fit, they don't show who quit.
Whenever you have annual subscriptions, you expect to see significant dips in subscription at the anniversary of major events. This is not an Insider unique phenomena - it is the general rule. That is why many subscription services release new major releases on or around an anniversary of a major prio event - to hide the dip from investors, etc...
I am basing my statements upon educated assumptions, of course. You can choose to ignore the logic in them, bury your head in the sand and assume that Insider is different than other subscription services. However, some are going to remain skeptical unless this oddity can be explained. Well, that guy that was abducted is going to remain skeptical regardless of what happens... that type of thing changes a man.
Further, WotC has overly stated a desire to keep a lot of their numbers hidden and unaccessible to the outside public. As such, any numbers derived from WotC sources should be taken with a pound of rock salt.
The only thing that the number of members of the DDI group can tell us is how many DDI subscribers have joined the foums. To try to expand that to anything more is, in my opinion, making assumptions that there is just not enough data to support.
Just because the numbers are going up, doesn't mean WoTC is going to justify their actions, they did that before anything came out, they set thier course, failed, changed, changed again without telling anyone and then changed yet again.
Nothing we said had ANY effect. In that aspect, they really don't listen to us.
If the numbers are going up, and are accurate, then WotC is completely justified in their actions as it seems to be what most people want and is leading to growth of the subscriber base.
But as has been pointed out, most recently by Mudbunny himself, those numbers can't be in any way converted into actual information about the subscriber base. I know many people who have canceled their subscriptions (including myself, I re-upped only a couple months ago to see how things were going with the VT)
But as has been pointed out, most recently by Mudbunny himself, those numbers can't be in any way converted into actual information about the subscriber base. I know many people who have canceled their subscriptions (including myself, I re-upped only a couple months ago to see how things were going with the VT)
The net effect of canceling and reupping probably just says, "I'm back! Thanks for doing a great job!"
I've said this before - it's pretty clear most people who get gone don't stay gone, so WotC has nothing to worry about. As far as their bottom line matters, they're doing everything right, because no matter how much people think they're screwing up, people don't leave, and if they do, it's usually not for long.
I have no doubt that the new structure is successful in preventing PIRACY... and thereby increasing the number of subscriptions...
No they just keep use the old character builder that is still being updated faster than the new one.
It's been about as effective as removing the PDF was at preventing piracy. It's a speed bump and nothing more, if anything less, as I'm sure people that can't legally buy PDF's now download the pirated ones as there is nothing else available. I suspect that some people that now don't have a character builder that supports their house rules now update their offline builder with new content illegally.
I think that's what annoys me more than anything, all this was done to prevent piracy, but all it seems to have done is encourage it, and in the meantime it's the honest people that paid their subscriptions that are suffering.
Something else to consider is that since they really arent coming out with many sourcebooks, at least at the pace they were, that some can use the old legal CB and not be missing out on stuff.
At a certain point there is "enough" content to realistically play what you want. Thats what my group is doing. Sure we will miss out on the shadow player book and the dark sun stuff but we have plenty of feats and power to use. Or heaven forbid we just just pen and paper at our pen and paper game table.
On your last point I agree. Those that pirate will do so. Those that want to pay for updates to an offline CB cannot.
My point is that growing numbers doesn't make WoTC feel justified in what they are doing, they acutally made their choices long before there were any numbers. At best you can say the growing numbers say they made the right choices.
But we shall see.
I think we are saying the same things--if the numbers were going down, the decisions would be changed. since they are going up, WOTC gets to pat themselves on the back for doing a good job, whether we think they are doing a good job one way or the other.
Why is there such a big difference between the members listed in the group and the "groups -> members" list? That seems pretty consistent behaviour in other groups (I'm sure the member list isn't 1800). I just don't understand why the difference.
Care to elaborate? I'm unsure of what you mean.
49673 Members
But if you go to the groups page and then click on the list of members it takes you to a page that shows every members avatar. With 20 Avatars a page and only 1808 pages (the last page only has three avatars) which means there are
36143 Members
49673 - 36143 means there are 13530 missing members.
I suspect those are people that have left. From the graph it looks like they have gained 7,000 members since the start of the online builder but if they have actually lost 13,530 since the begining of the D&DI then there is certainly an issue with retaining subscribers.
Even if it isn't the number of people that have left, it shows that using the group membership numbers isn't a useful measure of actual membership.
So, they need to really listen now to what people are saying about the VT, not just the ones that are so desperate to play DnD, that they are not being objective about the VT.
Actually the fact that VT is the only way I can play 4E in real time is plenty of reason for me to want it to be as good a product as possible. If anything it is a better reason for me, and others like me, to give accurate, well considered feedback on our experience with the VT.
Afterall for us if the VT is terrible and people don't use it we don't game.
That's a pretty good incentive for me to run my (currently) weekly game on the VT, even though I'd rather play.
49673 Members
But if you go to the groups page and then click on the list of members it takes you to a page that shows every members avatar. With 20 Avatars a page and only 1808 pages (the last page only has three avatars) which means there are
36143 Members
49673 - 36143 means there are 13530 missing members.
Thank You! That's good to know.
Even if it isn't the number of people that have left, it shows that using the group membership numbers isn't a useful measure of actual membership.
Now to try and figure out which is more likely;
- The Members count is a cached quick "count(1)" SQL query against an "every been a member" table, and is missing the "current" flag?
- The member list respects the "Search Privacy" setting, but the member count does not.
So, they need to really listen now to what people are saying about the VT, not just the ones that are so desperate to play DnD, that they are not being objective about the VT.
Actually the fact that VT is the only way I can play 4E in real time is plenty of reason for me to want it to be as good a product as possible. If anything it is a better reason for me, and others like me, to give accurate, well considered feedback on our experience with the VT.
Afterall for us if the VT is terrible and people don't use it we don't game.
That's a pretty good incentive for me to run my (currently) weekly game on the VT, even though I'd rather play.
The VT isn't meant just for people that could only play DnD via online, because there isn't anyone else around them to play.
It's meant for everyone. So anyone saying that they don't need anything more then what the VT offers now, and that if others want more, to bad, it doesn't need it, and that they don't have to ike it, those people are wrong.
I'm NOT saying YOU are saying this specifically. Just that people who are happy with how it is now, that's fine. But stop saying it doesn't need more. It just means those people don't need more, but others do. Like I said, it's not going to kill someone to support what someone else wants, making everyone get what they want, which over all is great for the VT and WoTC.
If the VT is meant for everyone, then it needs considerable improvement over the initial demo I saw a few months back. As one of the people who plays a weekly face to face game, my reaction was that I felt sorry for anyone who had no other way to play -- the VT demo looked rather clunky. I get the impression that it has improved a bit since then, but not enough to be of real value for face to face games.
So -- I won't be taking another look at the VT until I start reading really good things about it here -- basically good enough to make my DM consider switching from 3x5 note cards to VT.
I just like how when it's pro DDi people posting numbers, we aren't supposed to take them at face value. There has to be a mistake somewhere.
But when con DDi people are posting numbers, it supports their view, and the numbers don't have mistakes or explainations, and shows the truth.
If anything has been shown here it is that there are no trustworthy numbers published for us that have been tracked over a prolonged period of time. The numbers the original poster used don't match up with numbers elsewhere, so their validity is highly in question (especially when you factor in that they showed no dips around the anniversary of the large signup events, a phenomena that is very common in annual subscription situations).
In the end, however, I think the entire argument is irrelevant.
WotC has made their recent moves because they've determined that the new direction is what is necessary to maintain a profitable business model for the long term. Whether the change resulted in lost members, more members, or equal number of members - it was their only choice (in their minds).
The change impacted different people differently. Some, like me, look at the offerings of Insider and have determined that they just are not worth the $ in their current form. Those of us in that camp have a wide range of complaints. WotC has easy access to a wide listing of complaints. It is up to them to determine how they can respond to those complaints, and if responding to them is worth the cost of doing so.
In my case, I'll resubscribe when Insider provides something along the line of:
* At least 1 Dragon article every other month or so that is significantly useful to each PC I play (how long has it been since an article for my half-elven Kord worshipping Invoker had a useful article? 6 months? There are some race/class combos that have not seen an article in a year...).
* Better Indexing of Dragon and Dungeon Articles (How hard is it to have a tab for each class, race, etc...? How about listing all Dungeon adventures by the target level of the PCs?)
* Dungeon content that is easy for me to slip into an established campaign (they're ok in this department, but could be better).
* A CB that isn't slow, can be used offline (even if only as an interactive viewer), and isn't (too) buggy.
* A MB that allows for full customization of monsters equal to - or better than - the old MB was supposed to do.
* A VTT that isn't clunky and allows players to play without being subscribers (requiring the DM to subscribe is ok). It'd be best if the DM could download the module to a local system and run it on his PC, too. That would allow for it to be displayed on a TV in the living room where some people do not have internet access...
To be honest, all of that is stuff I expected to have available by the end of 2008. We're pretty far from that expectation...
I just like how when it's pro DDi people posting numbers, we aren't supposed to take them at face value. There has to be a mistake somewhere.
But when con DDi people are posting numbers, it supports their view, and the numbers don't have mistakes or explainations, and shows the truth.
Huh? Did you mix up Pro/Con here?
I'm generally con-DDI. I want the numbers to be wrong. But I believe them to be directionally accurate, and probably of the right OOM. So... I'm con-DDI. The numbers do NOT support my view, but I believe they show the truth.
So I'm not exactly sure what you're trying to say here.
Official DnD Group
Listed Members: 4470
Members listed under Member List : 4475 = 223 pages @ 20, 1 page @ 15
Official Magic the Gathering Group
Listed Members: 3413
Members listed under Member List : 3411 = 170 pages @ 20, last page @ 11
Official Living Forgotten Realms Group
Listed Members: 2362
Members listed under Member List : 2361 = 118 pages @ 20, last page @ 1
Those are the 3 largest public groups. None of them feature the same discrepency as the Insider group appears to have (and note that the Official DnD Group is even higher than what it's listed as).
According to the numbers provided, above, the DnD Insiders "actually" have about 73% of the members.
The next-most-populous public groups have 100.001%, 99%, and 99% of the listed members. I don't think the samples are large enough to accurately compare to the Insiders group, but there is definitely an inconsistancy, somewhere.
If the VT is meant for everyone, then it needs considerable improvement over the initial demo I saw a few months back. As one of the people who plays a weekly face to face game, my reaction was that I felt sorry for anyone who had no other way to play -- the VT demo looked rather clunky. I get the impression that it has improved a bit since then, but not enough to be of real value for face to face games.
So -- I won't be taking another look at the VT until I start reading really good things about it here -- basically good enough to make my DM consider switching from 3x5 note cards to VT.
I like the VT, its a good start.
Note: IT IS A GOOD START.
Until the VT and Adventure Tools can replace, and improve on Masterplan I'm not going to be satisfied with it, and I've been creating and running stuff with Masterplan since pre-version 1.0. and the VT has a long way to go to catch up to Masterplan, so you can bet I've got feedback for making it better. But even Masterplan has improved a lot in the last 10 full versions. VT isn't even to V1.0 yet.
But for jumping online and playing a game or 2 the VT is fine. Right now my major complaint is the lack of tile/portrait/map options. When they finally increase those to give the leval of variation that is really needed the VT will be basically ready for widespread use for playing DnD online.
But that is all it will be: a tool for playing DnD online.
The Adventure Tools will still need a lot done to them to make the the "go to" tools for DMs that are preparing a campaign and running it offline.
Not least of which is an offline campaign manager that can hook into DDI tools when you have 'net access.
* A CB that isn't slow, can be used offline (even if only as an interactive viewer), and isn't (too) buggy.
There are already many ways to do this from iPad apps to browser based solutions. Are you saying that until WotC puts the competition in this area out of business you aren't interested. Perhaps WotC feels that with the plethora of options available they don't need to be working on this. I would agree with them. Use i4e, or iPlay4e for at table interactive character sheets. Let WotC work on more important things.
* A CB that isn't slow, can be used offline (even if only as an interactive viewer), and isn't (too) buggy.
There are already many ways to do this from iPad apps to browser based solutions. Are you saying that until WotC puts the competition in this area out of business you aren't interested. Perhaps WotC feels that with the plethora of options available they don't need to be working on this. I would agree with them. Use i4e, or iPlay4e for at table interactive character sheets. Let WotC work on more important things.
With all due respect, what is important to you may or may not be important to others, and vice versa. Myztek feels it is important. Being dismissive really doesn't address his concerns. He merely mentions he wants to be able to view his characters (and powers/feats/etc.) in digital format while not connected to the internet, through the service that he created them. I don't find that an overwhelmingly taxing request in the least bit.
I wasn't being dismissive so much as pointing out that this is already possible without it being a feature of the OCB. Making that functionality a prerequsite for his resubscription to DDi seems a little bit like making impossible, unlikely or unreasonable demands, something Myztek has been accused of before by posters other than myself. It just sort of rings hollow as a reason to not subscribe.
Impossible, unlikely or unreasonable? To restore capability we had in the prior version? Ummm... Weird. An expectation that we not see downgraded functionality has never struck me as impossible, unlikely or unreasonable when discussing other products.
When we shop for products, we look for products where the benefit exceeds our cost. I listed a set of thresholds that combine to pait a picture where the current cost WotC is asking would balance with the benefit I'd receive. You could exceed some of those expectations and fall a little short of others and still end up with a product worth buying (to me), but that provides a pretty clean baseline for what I expect for my money.
When 4E was announced, there was a pretty clear indication that we'd get service along the lines I am "demanding" for our Insider subscription. That hypothetical product was worth that cost to me. Costs have risen, and we're not close to that level of product. We've fallen below my expetctaions for what I should receive for my cash.
My main point is really this: I can play great D&D games for the next 5 or so years without spending another dime. For Insider to be worth my money, it has to make a substantial improvement in my gaming experience. The current articles, tools and approach is far short. I'd rather spend that $70 a year on new board games, on eating out with the wife, or on fixing up the house. I'm looking for WotC to give me a reason to give them my money. I have not had one in a while.
It is just that simple. YMMV.
Perhaps WotC will write a local applet CS viewer to access exported OCB files, or perhaps they feel no need to do that since many 3rd party apps, and web sites do the same thing.
Could you provide me with a link to a mere one of these apps/sites that allows me to view my OCB character? I would most certainly benefit from this. I will agree that Myztek's request is unlikely, only because of WotC's track record. But I don't think it's unreasonable. It is definitely not impossible.
I honestly don't know of any for non-mobile platforms, since I haven't looked.
i4e is one that I know of that accepts imported .dnd4e files. There are several others. They are editable manually from there, but there is no interaction with the CB itself and no automatic math updating or rules replication. There are lots of apps on mobile platforms, just search for D&D apps and you'll find them fairly readily.
I honestly don't know of any for non-mobile platforms, since I haven't looked.
But you can't obtain those from the Online Character Builder. Or does the O stand for "Offline"? I thought the offline one was now called the CBC.
From Kalex's post, he differentiates the locally hosted client and the OCB, so I can only assume he is referring to the Online Character Builder. Or does the Online Character Builder now export .dnd4e files?
Perhaps a little more research would be warranted before deciding all the tools have no use for you.
Yes, the online Builder exports .dnd4e files.
Perhaps a little more research would be warranted before deciding all the tools have no use for you.
I admitted my oversight and apologized. Maybe a little more humility would be warranted before adding unnecessary condescension. FYI, I DM. I don't run PCs. The OCB still has little use for me. Hence, the oversight, since I am not in it at all and did not know of the change.
If you look at the group from your home area is says there are currently
49673 Members
But if you go to the groups page and then click on the list of members it takes you to a page that shows every members avatar. With 20 Avatars a page and only 1808 pages (the last page only has three avatars) which means there are
36143 Members
49673 - 36143 means there are 13530 missing members.
I suspect those are people that have left. From the graph it looks like they have gained 7,000 members since the start of the online builder but if they have actually lost 13,530 since the begining of the D&DI then there is certainly an issue with retaining subscribers.
Even if it isn't the number of people that have left, it shows that using the group membership numbers isn't a useful measure of actual membership.
Let's pull in some comparitive numbers from other groups so we can see what's going on.
Official DnD Group
Listed Members: 4470
Members listed under Member List : 4475 = 223 pages @ 20, 1 page @ 15
Official Magic the Gathering Group
Listed Members: 3413
Members listed under Member List : 3411 = 170 pages @ 20, last page @ 11
Official Living Forgotten Realms Group
Listed Members: 2362
Members listed under Member List : 2361 = 118 pages @ 20, last page @ 1
Those are the 3 largest public groups. None of them feature the same discrepency as the Insider group appears to have (and note that the Official DnD Group is even higher than what it's listed as).
According to the numbers provided, above, the DnD Insiders "actually" have about 73% of the members.
The next-most-populous public groups have 100.001%, 99%, and 99% of the listed members. I don't think the samples are large enough to accurately compare to the Insiders group, but there is definitely an inconsistancy, somewhere.
So the question is, why would the discrepancy in the DDI group be so much greater?
There are three explanations I can think of:
1. People who join DDI but never make a forum account are added to the group's total count but do not show up on the list of members. In this case, the number we're seeing actually does represent the entirety of DDI more-or-less accurately.
2. People who leave groups are removed from the list of members but not from the group count. Since the other groups have no auto-remove feature, and there's little reason to remove ones self from a group, DDI has far more members who have been removed from the group.
3. People with certain privacy settings do not show up on the list of members. This only makes sense if said provacy setting is, for some reason, far more commonly toggled by DDI members.
2 just seems like the most likely scenario. The count is simply a running tally, where whenever anyone joins it it goes "+1" but never goes "-1" when they leave. It explains why there is a tiny discrepancy in the other groups, because people leaving those groups will happen, but very very rarely, as there's no auto-removal and no reason to self-remove.
1 is possible, but because the groups are entirely a function of the forum software, I don't see why that integration would occur. This also doesn't explain why theres any discrepancy at all in the other groups, since the only auto-add functions of those groups occur when you sign up for a forum membership.
3 is just statistically unlikley. If it were a matter of each account's settings, we'd see very similar results across the groups, especially because theres quite a bit of overlap between the DDI group and the D&D group.
Edit: however, it is certainly a possible side-effect of the auto-add / can't leave (because they suck you back in) characteristic of the group. By default, it seems, manually adding yourself to a group updates the group like you'd expect. Who knows whether automated changes work the same way, though.
2 just seems like the most likely scenario. The count is simply a running tally, where whenever anyone joins it it goes "+1" but never goes "-1" when they leave. It explains why there is a tiny discrepancy in the other groups, because people leaving those groups will happen, but very very rarely, as there's no auto-removal and no reason to self-remove.
This makes the assumption that member_count is a field in a table in their database. I'm not clear why you would ever store this value when count(1) against the table gets you the result.
While it's fun to speculate, in the end it gets us nowhere. People are going to pick the answer that fits what they think is true and ignore the others as unlikely for whatever reason they make up.
2 just seems like the most likely scenario. The count is simply a running tally, where whenever anyone joins it it goes "+1" but never goes "-1" when they leave. It explains why there is a tiny discrepancy in the other groups, because people leaving those groups will happen, but very very rarely, as there's no auto-removal and no reason to self-remove.
This makes the assumption that member_count is a field in a table in their database. I'm not clear why you would ever store this value when count(1) against the table gets you the result.
It could be that inactive members are still in the database, but are listed as inactive. So the number we see is all the members, "active" and "inactive", while only the active ones show up in the list of members. This could also explain why other groups behave differently: if you remove yourself from a group, you are actually removed, but being deactivated from a group is a different process.
Note that if it's #2, it means that it would be a quality of the DDI group that is not shared by all groups - I just ran a test where I added and removed an account from a group I own, and the number went up and down as expected, and the membership list adjusted accordingly.
Related to the post above: is there something between removing an account altogether and restricting it in some way? Is it possible people who have quit DDI are held in some sort of group-member limbo?
Note that if it's #2, it means that it would be a quality of the DDI group that is not shared by all groups - I just ran a test where I added and removed an account from a group I own, and the number went up and down as expected, and the membership list adjusted accordingly.
Related to the post above: is there something between removing an account altogether and restricting it in some way? Is it possible people who have quit DDI are held in some sort of group-member limbo?
The forum ate my edit to the above, but my only answer is "who knows?" The way I see it, we basically have two options in the end:
1) Membership has steadily increased, and that's just the way it is, or...
2) Something weird goes on with the DDI group numbers.
If it's (1), well then good for Wizards: apparently they know how to sell things I don't want to people who do want them. If the numbers are fishy, then the whole discussion is pointless because we have nothing to work with.
Note that if it's #2, it means that it would be a quality of the DDI group that is not shared by all groups - I just ran a test where I added and removed an account from a group I own, and the number went up and down as expected, and the membership list adjusted accordingly.
Related to the post above: is there something between removing an account altogether and restricting it in some way? Is it possible people who have quit DDI are held in some sort of group-member limbo?
The forum ate my edit to the above, but my only answer is "who knows?" The way I see it, we basically have two options in the end:
1) Membership has steadily increased, and that's just the way it is, or...
2) Something weird goes on with the DDI group numbers.
If it's (1), well then good for Wizards: apparently they know how to sell things I don't want to people who do want them. If the numbers are fishy, then the whole discussion is pointless because we have nothing to work with.
Attempting to add you to a test group now, doesn't want to let me. Not sure if your privacy settings disallow it or what. If you don't have an interest, that's cool, just let me know.
Attempting to add you to a test group now, doesn't want to let me. Not sure if your privacy settings disallow it or what. If you don't have an interest, that's cool, just let me know.
I'm not sure what setting it would be - I'm mostly locked down in my profile, but there's nothing obvious about groups there.
I'll keep fiddling with it though.
Myztek, you are missing the whole point of what I am saying. The functionality we had was in a locally installed application. It may be difficult or impossible to make that same functionality present in the OCB, and many posters who are asking for that functionality are doing so because they don't have internet access where they game. So putting an active CS viewer in the OCB doesn't help them at all. When you say that you will only resubscribe when the OCB has that functionality you completely ignore this issue.
And? Why is it relevant to me?
WotC offers product. That product has certain features. For certain people, that product is worth what WotC is asking. For me, that product isn't worth my money unless it does the type of things I stated above. I don't give a frig why the product doesn't meet my expectations. If it isn't worth the cost, it isn't going to be purchased.
Perhaps WotC will write a local applet CS viewer to access exported OCB files, or perhaps they feel no need to do that since many 3rd party apps, and web sites do the same thing. This is why I think your demand is unreasonable. Because it doesn't take into account many factors that affect it.
The presence of 3rd party products is a factor to consider. However, when you factor in the WotC/Hasbro tendency to not play well with others, it isn't something that I consider strongly. If I subscribed to Insider because I assumed that the combination of Insider offerings and 3rd party offerings would meet my requisite threshold for worth, and then WotC sends a cease and knock it the frick off letter to i4e and basically shuts it down, then I'm out my $ and I'm not getting the requisite value. I don't want to take that gamble (along with the gambles that WotC will change their exportable format in a way that prevents i4e from working, etc...)
Regardless, there are four areas where WotC is operating below the requisite level of service I expect for my money (CB, MB, VTT and amount of Insider content). CB is the element closest to the minimum threshold of performance I seek. Even if WotC did everything I asked to the CB, I still would not be rejoining until the rest is addressed. When WotC first released Insider with ads for a 3D VTT, multiple articles every few months for any given D&D character, a CB that allowed homebrew modification and worked offline, and more tools on the way that would make running a campaign easier, I thought those products would be worth the fee. However, since then, the fee has gone up and we're farther from those goals than we were in October 2008.
Not. Worth. My. Money.
So anyone making a chart with the two different numbers for the group? To see if one only goes up and the other varies a bit more.
I'm not sure it would be useful now - the time to be watching these numbers was during the "we're changing everything" and the "we don't need no stinking deadlines" months; at this point people who were going to terminate their subscriptions because of WotC's sea-change probably have, and people who haven't left yet most likely won't.
So anyone making a chart with the two different numbers for the group? To see if one only goes up and the other varies a bit more.
I'm not sure it would be useful now - the time to be watching these numbers was during the "we're changing everything" and the "we don't need no stinking deadlines" months; at this point people who were going to terminate their subscriptions because of WotC's sea-change probably have, and people who haven't left yet most likely won't.
We could still see a dip when all of these "I unchecked auto-renew"'s come due...
So anyone making a chart with the two different numbers for the group? To see if one only goes up and the other varies a bit more.
I'm not sure it would be useful now - the time to be watching these numbers was during the "we're changing everything" and the "we don't need no stinking deadlines" months; at this point people who were going to terminate their subscriptions because of WotC's sea-change probably have, and people who haven't left yet most likely won't.
We could still see a dip when all of these "I unchecked auto-renew"'s come due...
That would only be visible if their auto-renews all came up close to one another. But, given that there are 1, 3 and 12 months packages available, the chance that happens is minimal.
So anyone making a chart with the two different numbers for the group? To see if one only goes up and the other varies a bit more.
I'm not sure it would be useful now - the time to be watching these numbers was during the "we're changing everything" and the "we don't need no stinking deadlines" months; at this point people who were going to terminate their subscriptions because of WotC's sea-change probably have, and people who haven't left yet most likely won't.
We could still see a dip when all of these "I unchecked auto-renew"'s come due...
I guess the bigger question is, what do I win if I'm right and membership does suddenly drop off? Vindication is always nice, but in the end DDI will still not make me happy - there will just be fewer subscribers to tell me I'm wrong.
I guess the bigger question is, what do I win if I'm right and membership does suddenly drop off? Vindication is always nice, but in the end DDI will still not make me happy - there will just be fewer subscribers to tell me I'm wrong.
It's important not to discount the effect of perception. A customer that is personally unhappy with a product is more likely to continue using it if he thinks he's in the minority. He comes to believe his opinion is wrong. It's the "momentum" effect, why a political candidate is more likely to win in primary #2 simply by the fact he won primary #1. This same glitch in human nature works for products as well. If Coke is percived as the ubiquitous favorite, a Pepsi drinker is more likely to ignore his own preference and drink Coke.
That principle in mind, the idea that DDI is gaining new subscribers hand over fist is likely to convince poeple to stick with it. Even those of us that want to use our abstinance from the service to try to promote positive change might be convinced their boycott is having no effect, and will stop being vocal about desired changes, convinced nobody is listening.
If this is accurate, then it's accurate, and we might as well shut up, because the market has spoken. I don't think it is accurate though, and the Group's unique disparity between its member list and number of members is, I think, the best evidence we have of that. As I noted, privacy settings do not prevent users from showing up on the group list, so some other factor must be at work here.
It the VT works out for them and they then have the money to go chasing customers they have lost, great, I won't mind being wrong in that case.
If you look at the group from your home area is says there are currently
49673 Members
But if you go to the groups page and then click on the list of members it takes you to a page that shows every members avatar. With 20 Avatars a page and only 1808 pages (the last page only has three avatars) which means there are
36143 Members
49673 - 36143 means there are 13530 missing members.
I suspect those are people that have left. From the graph it looks like they have gained 7,000 members since the start of the online builder but if they have actually lost 13,530 since the begining of the D&DI then there is certainly an issue with retaining subscribers.
Even if it isn't the number of people that have left, it shows that using the group membership numbers isn't a useful measure of actual membership.
Since I posted this on the 31 March, I took another look at the figures today.
Now it says 50401 members but the Members list only shows 36779 members
The good news for Wizards is that both figures are going up, the first by 728 members the second by only 638 members, which makes me think during the same periods they gained 728 members they lost 92 members, giving and actual rise of 638 members.
I suppose if currently you are gaining 600+ members for every 100 or so you lose, most likely thanks to the interest in the virtual table, then you probably think you can afford to ignore your current membership.
I'm just wondering how many of those 600+ new members are one month or three month subscribers trying it out, to see what the table is like, and how many of those 90 odd were long term yearly subscribers.
I think what has to be a major concern for Wizards is that, currently there are no free tables in the VT. So all those people putting there toe in the water are going to get very disappointed.
From watching these forums, specifically certain posts that Paolo made about 3rd party developers and the fact that none of them were shut down, but instead were miracuously able to provide OCB support shortly after it's release leads me to believe that WotC is working with certain 3rd party developers who don't tread on their IP.
That's exactly what is happening.
Cheers
Blakey
also i see that alot of the "this sucks i quit" crowd from november dident stick to their guns for too long (myself included since i decided to just buy the books)
i got no use for DDI anymore, but this does set my heart at ease, that D&D is growing still regaurdless of the rage of myself and others.
also i see that alot of the "this sucks i quit" crowd from november dident stick to their guns for too long (myself included since i decided to just buy the books)
Read the rest of the thread.
The OP's chart is meaningless at best, based on a number that more likley represents the number of people who have ever been DDI members than it does current DDI members. The actual number appears to be something on the order of 30% fewer members than what's listed. When did DDI lose that 30%? None of us are sure, because DMaple only discovered the more reliable means to track membership recently (ie, the last few pages of this thread).
It is all meaningless! No one can verify with any certainty what any of the "discovered" numbers mean, therefore this is an exercise in futility for both sides of the argument. Can't say it comes as a big surprise to me.
Not only is it meaningless, it's pointless. The only use for determining these numbers is to support an argument on the internet. It's like trying to argue rpg sales data with a pathfinder fanboy.
It is all meaningless! No one can verify with any certainty what any of the "discovered" numbers mean, therefore this is an exercise in futility for both sides of the argument. Can't say it comes as a big surprise to me.
Not only is it meaningless, it's pointless. The only use for determining these numbers is to support an argument on the internet. It's like trying to argue rpg sales data with a pathfinder fanboy.
But if the numbers back up my theory (which will not change, regardless of what the numbers may say), then I will WIN the internet!
Other than that, I'm pretty sure everything else is people liking to argue.
I also stuck to my guns and left DDI as a subscriber because the changes made no longer made sense in my particular situation. All 20 pages of this thread, going on and on about speculating how many numbers of subscribers there are, in the grand scheme of things doesn't really matter.What matters is this: Play what you like to play. Read what you enjoy reading. Support what you want to support. Nobody elses opinion matters at all.