Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Solid content with poor delivery, October 31, 2000
It would be asking a lot to have 250+ issues of a magazine delivered in the most high tech framework, one that would meet future standards seamlessly. (Crying about the program not working on niche platforms like UNIX is a little odd, given that this is a consumer product.) But TSR's choice to go with a proprietary interface that doesn't work as well as the shareware Acrobat Reader is just odd. As a result, less tech-savvy users will find this product frustrating, trying to navigate using TSR's "kewl" interface, when instead they should just download the free Acrobat Reader from Adobe.com. Having said that, once users have made the leap to using Acrobat, this product is a treasure. With a good printer -- or simply a monitor that's comfortable enough to read on -- this would be a bargain at twice the price. I've already spent many, many hours reading reprints of articles I never saw before, and haven't even gone digging for fondly remembered stories and comic strips. This is a must for any D&D fan, from any era. (And now that D&D and "Dragon" magazine are owned by Wizards of the Coast, hopefully they'll learn from the mistakes made here and do better with their electronic products.)
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36 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good to have, August 22, 2000
This is a very good archive of Dragon Magazines first 250 issues. The software it comes with does have problems, but the magazines are in PDF format, which means you can read through them without using the software that it comes with. Basically, the reason to get this is for all those great old articles about Dungeons and Dragons and other Role Playing Games from the past. Several well known authors got their start in Dragon Magazine. Folks like Ed Greenwood, Katharine Kerr, E. Gary Gygax, Roger Moore, etc. And seeing old articles by folks like Arthur Collins, Kim Mohan, and others is really great. Of course the major high lights of being able to see the old articles are the old "From the Sorceror's Scroll" articles by E. Gary Gygax and seeing how the AD&D game evolved over the years. And then there are old favorite articles like the orginal Anti-Paladin by George Laking and Tim Mesford, "The Politics of Hell" by Alexander van Thorn, and of course the articles about the Astral plane by Roger Moore and the Nine Hells by Ed Greenwood. Along the way, there is great old cartoons, like the orginal "What's New" by Phil Foglio, "Wormy" by the now disappeared Dave Trampier and "Snarfquest" by Larry Elmore. Really, worth while to have for those who followed Dragon Magazine through the years. The first issue I bought was issue #49. And it is still going after all these years. In my opinion, Kim Mohan was the best editor the magazine ever had. Worthwhile.
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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent resource, January 23, 2000
The Dragon Archives CD is an excellent value and a godsend for Dungeon Masters. Not only do you get 250+ magazines, you can easily search them and book mark them. It comes in *very* handy when folks start arguing about spell interpretations, and its great for research. Some folks have reported problems with the interface; I haven't had any. My only gripes are the CD holder (which doesn't work very well) and the fact that there are five CDs -- this is one archive that should have been available on a DVD-ROM. Doing a search, and having to swap CDs in and out, is a pain. All in all though, its one of WotC/TSR's best online products. I would prefer to see the books on Core Rules 2.0 and 2.0 Expantion released in this sort of a format as well; being able to see the illustrations is a real plus. I hope WotC does more products like this -- my wish list would be: 1. Dungeon Magazine 2. Complete Greyhawk collection 3. Complete Forgotten Realms collection.
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