Dungeons & Dragons Insider Subscriptions Starting Soon

Has everyone enjoyed their free doses of Dungeons & Dragons Insider? I know there are a lot of jaded 3.5 edition and Pathfinder RPG fans out there, but for those who are fans of 4e, if you wanted to check it out before you have to get a subscription to do so... I'd hurry.

Now, during the very early days of DDI, one of the main complaints was that the Dragon and Dungeon magazine articles were not getting compiled into issues regularly. While I would like to see the articles themselves follow a set schedule in being released more regularly (and there is some evidence that WotC is indeed moving to a model to enforce that), I am happy to say that since 4e was released the compiled versions of the magazines have been being released pretty much on schedule.

Are they worth it? There is a lot of grumbling that the articles are no better quality than the free stuff we used to get on the Wizards of the Coast website. I don't agree, myself. So far the articles have been pretty decent. Their plan for an Adventure Path is a bit ambitious, and so far I haven't been wowed by it, but they are still in the early stages of it, and it could shape up yet.

I'm pleased to see a little bit of Eberron content (and would like to see more, frankly), and the crunch in the articles has, for the most part, been useful. I'm not all glowing praise, however, since I'm still disappointed that the "gap" issues between the start of DDI and 4e have still not been compiled, and I do feel Eberron fans were let down when they did an Eberron conversion of module H1, but then only an FR conversion of H2.

I'm also a bit miffed that they are charging for the DDI and it is not yet finished. The character builder, dungeon builder, and game table... some of the eagerly awaited elements... are still missing. For an all in one online game solution, I find it still lacking.

Still, I will probably spring for their discounted subscription to get the online magazines, at least for the time being. The current look at the playtest of the barbarian as well as some of the previous playtests make me think that there will be some worthwhile content in the DDI, and I am willing to give Wizards a year to show me that it will be worth it.

For those interested in the playtesting aspect (as we've seen with the artificer and now the barbarian) you should be interested to know that those elements are almost certainly going to be limited to subscribers.