I saw a comment over at Wargamer to the effect, that WotC has essentially killed Dragon as well as Dungeon Magazine. Apparently they plan to convert to an online content option.
Hmm I think the idea makes the handling of the PS3 look brilliant (that's obviously sarcasm if you didn't see it).
I remember reading Dragon when it first arrived. I knew next to nothing about rolegaming, and the Dragon was there to explain it all. I think an online magazine is about the same as a dead magazine.
The reason... well it's simple. With a print magazine you could take it to the game, you could photocopy a chart for your game, in short you could use it at your game. An online magazine will have almost no worth off your computer (and I don't call using up my ink supply after I have already paid for a non physical magazine something to be thrilled about).
It's bad enough that most people actually think World of Warcraft is rolegaming. But killing off the star of real paper and pencil rolegaming will NOT have a positive effect.
It's true the world is no longer ideally receptive or friendly to print media. The only online alternative worth mention, is a purchased pdf file download. The only easy way I can think of this working, is using paid for accounts, that provide access to the files. Not that that is perfect, it's clear most pirated files come from people that bought the product, and then uploaded it. Nothing is ever perfect.
But chances of me wanting to indulge an online Dragon issue are almost zero.
Hmm I think the idea makes the handling of the PS3 look brilliant (that's obviously sarcasm if you didn't see it).
I remember reading Dragon when it first arrived. I knew next to nothing about rolegaming, and the Dragon was there to explain it all. I think an online magazine is about the same as a dead magazine.
The reason... well it's simple. With a print magazine you could take it to the game, you could photocopy a chart for your game, in short you could use it at your game. An online magazine will have almost no worth off your computer (and I don't call using up my ink supply after I have already paid for a non physical magazine something to be thrilled about).
It's bad enough that most people actually think World of Warcraft is rolegaming. But killing off the star of real paper and pencil rolegaming will NOT have a positive effect.
It's true the world is no longer ideally receptive or friendly to print media. The only online alternative worth mention, is a purchased pdf file download. The only easy way I can think of this working, is using paid for accounts, that provide access to the files. Not that that is perfect, it's clear most pirated files come from people that bought the product, and then uploaded it. Nothing is ever perfect.
But chances of me wanting to indulge an online Dragon issue are almost zero.