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9:49 pm
April 13, 2009
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Odd_Canuck
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| Veteran | posts 24 |
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Anyone have an opinion on Wizards stopping the release of all their PDF game books until further notice?
(The short version if you missed it is that they found a 10:1 illegal/legal download ratio on PBH2 so ordered all companies that were selling the legal PDF versions to stop for ALL Wizards products)
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Good neighbor, put away your silver for I only fight for 3 things; Purity, Nobility and Self-Sacrifice.*
*- The purity of your gold, the Nobility that have gold and the Self-Sacrifice of others so that I get their gold.
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10:17 pm
April 13, 2009
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Gryvon
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| Veteran | posts 31 |
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WHAT?! Illegally downloaded media? *feigns shock*
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11:58 pm
April 13, 2009
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SkilGalen
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I had no idea there were legal pdf versions even, though I did know that they were available for download. I don't have too much of an opinion other than people really should buy whatever they plan on using. Inna and I spent the $30 for PHB 2 a couple of sundays ago when we were playing at great escape. I guess PDF versions of books are usefull but I really can't get into reading books on a screen and printing and binding never really fits the bill either.
The only opinion I do have is that some of the books are a tad expensive, but then again the physical hardback $35 books can be bought for as little as $20 online, and under $50 for the core rules box set if you look around. Much more reasonable prices and with the economy the way it is, some places even offer free or close to free shipping as an added incentive. Still kind of like buying from local stores if only to support them and make sure they stick around.
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11:25 am
April 14, 2009
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Gryvon
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| Veteran | posts 31 |
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I did a tad of research and it took me about 2 minutes to find 5 different places online where you can download all of the D&D 4e books and a vast majority of the 3/3.5e books. I'd post the links to show you, but I don't want to support the idea or open you to any sort of legal responsibility. I'll tell you it's not much harder than clicking and link and then clicking a download button. Needless to say, I'm really not shocked. And it's not like not selling the hardbacks will stop the problem. You can download all sorts of PDFs that were never released that way. Anyone with a box knife and a scanner can make a PDF out of them. *shrug*
I personally can see the benefit of downloading a PDF version. Then again, I have a laptop that I tend to bring with me to games, so it can be a little handy. The PDFs are organized really well so I can just click bookmarks and go right to the section I need. I also don't have to worry about the binding falling apart on a soft copy. Even though I'm not playing 4th Edition right now, if and when I get in to it, I really hope I'm able to buy the digital books.
My question is; how do they know that 10:1 copies are illegal? They have to be guessing.
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12:59 pm
April 14, 2009
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SkilGalen
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Yeah I grabbed a whole bunch of old TSR stuff one time. I guess the bookmarks are one advantage. I have those colour tabs on my books to do much the same thing. Of course if your a player and subscribe to the insider thing, you almost don't need any books now. The Character builder seems to have all the info from the books in.
Quite impressed with the character builder actually. You can customize the layout and content of the character sheet and everything is set up really nicely. so for your damage section, you can customize it to add all your weapons automaticaly. The power cards also stack up all your stats and let you specify which weapons you want listed, so everythings really easy to find, and the shop is nice with all the items from various books, auto encumberance, and pricing taken care of for you.
Has PHB, PHB2 and Martial powers options included. So all the books needed for my Ranger. I like the builder a lot, didn't expect to and wasn't even going to try it initially.
There was one problem though. OUr DM had use roll backgrounds with traits and I got a trained in my class from a young age giving me an extra at will daily. Something I can't add since the house rule options are limited. But thats easy enough to get around.
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1:12 pm
April 14, 2009
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Odd_Canuck
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| Veteran | posts 24 |
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Gryvon said:
My question is; how do they know that 10:1 copies are illegal? They have to be guessing.
I gather that they monitored the torrent sites and how many people were downloading that one particular file… it is possible to track it, particularly since there were a handful of people who were kinda… well… stupid in how they distributed the files.
When you download a legal copy from some place the file gets watermarked… you have your name (and usually your customer ID) in the corner of it on every page. I gather several people just posted that copy to the torrent sites and pirate boards. So hundreds of people were downloading copies that had someones name in it.
One of the reasons that people are really upset over the stopping of PDF sales is the older books. I gather they had a lot of 2nd Ed and 3.x material for sale in PDF that they no longer have in print… So it makes it a pain to legally obtain the older gaming system stuff.
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Good neighbor, put away your silver for I only fight for 3 things; Purity, Nobility and Self-Sacrifice.*
*- The purity of your gold, the Nobility that have gold and the Self-Sacrifice of others so that I get their gold.
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