Rating: 
Summary: Good product, bad conduct
Review: Overall this is an above average product, but some of the quality of the images leaves a lot to be desired. They didn't always translate well to the PDF format.Too bad that the artists who contributed much of the internal content for these issues over the years weren't properly re-approached, contractually engaged for permission and royalties for reprint rights, etc. The content of this item was largely reproduced in violation of TSR's own contracts (TSR is now owned by WOTC), which had clauses providing for re-publication rights, payment arrangements, time-limits, and permissions. Not only were the proper contractual permissions for re-publication (in ANY medium or form) not obtained in many or most cases, but arrangements for payment of usage fees or royalties, as also specified as necessary in the original contributors' contracts, were not made, either. To buy this product (yes, I have a copy of it) is to support this ultimate disrespect to the many creative people, writers and artists alike, who have contributed to the magazine over the years. Looks like a corporate giant is a corporate giant, regardless of the type of business involved, and the bottom line is the bottom line. I for one will no longer purchase any of the products of these two affiliated companies.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent resource
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Great idea that is long overdue!
Review: This is a must have for DM's and Players alike! I've been role-playing for 15 years, and this is a very helpful item for anyone to have. The only thing that I have a problem with is this;The interface is a bit slow, even on my new machine. Other than that, I had no problem accessing any of the contents. I got tired of looking through my old issues of Dragon. The search is great, and helpful. Again....Buy this product. Good job WTC!
Rating: 
Summary: Good to have
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Good to have
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Takes Up Less Shelf-Space than 250 Magazines
Review: What else can you say about a new product which is just a compilation of old, out-of-print issues of a magazine? Of course, unless you have a laptop, you can't take out an old issue and flop onto the couch to skim through any given issue, which makes it slightly less convenient than having the physical magazines. But the searchability makes up for that shortcoming.
It's a good thing to have. In this archive is every page of every issue from 1 to 250, even the ads, on 5 CDs. These are bundled together in a gimmicky user interface that leaves a little to be desired, but is not that bad. The search feature is not as good as it could be. I tested it with some search targets which I knew the location of, and some of my tests produced false or no results. The interface allows a bookmark feature to mark particular sections in the archive, but I haven't really had much use for this. Some people may find it invaluable.
The interface also ran very slowly on my old machine, which exceeded the minimum system requirements in all regards. The documentation that came with the product suggests copying the individual issues onto your hard drive to improve speed. So it's best to use this interface if you have a very fast system or a very large hard drive. Fortunately, if you have no time or patience for the user interface, the individual magazines are readable as .pdf files in Acrobat Reader. Problem solved.
Personally, I like having 250 issues of Dragon to read through. And at 16 cents an issue, the price is right.
Rating: 
Summary: Content: Yes! Program: Bad!
Review: While definately worth the money for the archives of Dragon-lore, the program it comes with really is poor - the only use is for searching through all the articles. The issues themselvers are in PDF format, so I recommend just using Adobe Acrobat to read them, and don't bother with the built in one. Another drawback is some of the coolest "inserts" from Dragons past are missing (Like the Deck of Many Things!), but you can download them from the WoTC web site (at 5-10 meg per file). Overall, I'd say the product is worth it, but don't expect to be wowed by the accompanying program.
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