FGs biggest problem

[damned]

A developer did a crowdfunding exercise for a ruleset wizard and got 57 backers only.
The project needed 300 to be viable.

Roll20 advertises over 1 million users.
Game systems outside the top 25 or so games average less than 200 games in a quarter, outside the top 35 or so are under 100 games.

[Valyar]

We should not compare Roll20 and FG, because there is nothing to compare in this regards. Roll20 provides you with ... nothing. They didn't enhance their service since years and the "Charactermancer" or whatever the name is, is not that good. Yes, you have dynamic lighting and for ridiculous amount of 10 USD per month - access to the buzzword "API". The fancy they pretend it is, you are on the mercy of the JavaScript and the community. Their whole "environment" is run by the community and quite frankly, one of the reasons I stopped using this platform. I reported a bug that I can fix on my own in their javascript code and for more than an year nobody did a ****. Sorry, this is ridiculous.

Fantasy Grounds on the other hand, did something right - they made a framework. Amazing framework, but... still only a framework. Without proper tools for it to be used by non-technical people, it is just another niche thing with the full power of the framework accessible for few. If we get GUI and easy to use tools to develop ruleset/module/theme/skin and better documentation I am absolutely sure that the library will explode from rulesets and FG will get even more people using it. For example - the map editor of StarCraft. No need to say more, I hope.

I know my way around code and the only learning curve for me was how the hell the XML is organized and to learn the specific LUA programming specifics, as it is different than the scripting/programming languages I am versed with. I don't want to have second job at programming, I prefer having second job doing nice stuffs in FG for the hobby I like, with tools that are making my life easier. I can compare it to an open-source project, but the people who can fork or continue the project (when the owner no longer has interest to keep doing it) are significantly fewer.

In short - give us the tools and we will do the rest.

PS: MoreCore is fantastic. Must be in the Core.

[L. R. Ballard]

A developer did a crowdfunding exercise for a ruleset wizard and got 57 backers only.
The project needed 300 to be viable.

Roll20 advertises over 1 million users.
Game systems outside the top 25 or so games average less than 200 games in a quarter, outside the top 35 or so are under 100 games.

Thanks for that.

Those 57 people weren’t committed to paying the real-world price to get something done.

Here’s an example of how it could’ve worked. I backed MapForge at $98. If 56 other people had supported the crowdfunding campaign quoted above, 57 people would’ve raised $5,586. At a project price of $5,000, the project gets done.

But I take your points:

1. Some of the games that people want support for simply don’t have enough players to get the response needed to fund a project.

2. It’s unreasonable to think that SmiteWorks can dedicate labor to a project that won’t get a return on investment (ROI).

[Valyar]

Most of the time it is lack of proper marketing, not that there are no people. Nowadays, with the saturation of our senses to a level that makes us shut down, lack of good way to promote your product or create a need is fundamental to the success. Many companies have awesome products, but fall behind the marketing and lose. And we get Roll20.

[Trenloe]

Crowdfunding to create a ruleset by the community, not controlled by SmiteWork? I would be very, very, very cautious with going this route. There are many stories of rulesets being started by developers but never finished. Annoying, but no one has paid for said ruleset, so no one has lost out.

I’ve backed a number of crowd funded software over the years and I have been burned many times - product never gets out of alpha/beta, product never delivers anything like it comitted to, etc., etc.. I now usually avoid software kickstarters/crowd sourcing - they usually run out of money and under deliver. This happens again and again, whether it’s part-time or professional full-time developers.

Crowd funding a FG ruleset? How many people are going to pay $20, $30, $40 for a ruleset, sight unseen, developed by a part-time community developer? And then wait a number of months for it and hope it gets to a point that it’s decent and usable with good content...

Whereas the current royalty model is not ideal in terms of attracting developers for less than mainstream RPG systems, and keeping them interested when the going gets tough (which it does). It does provide the developer with a small level of ongoing revenue (royalties per purchase), it protects the consumer by them only paying for something that is ready to use, and it allows for official products to be released (with reference material) as the IP owners get their cut.

EDIT: and, the number of community developers I’d even slightly consider pre-paying to develop a ruleset can be counted on one hand. And they’re already working on other projects. My opinion is that this really isn’t something that trying to throw crowd source funding at is going to solve. It can sound like a solution when the small number of dedicated FG community members are kicking around "I’d easily pay XX for that!", but as the example damned mentioned (a GUI FG XML builder) - "everyone" said they wanted this, but very few backed the project, so it never happened.

[dulux-oz]

Who said (apart from speculation) that you'd get someone (good) for $5000?

A Professional coder earns circa $75/hr and up, which puts a 500 hour project at approx $37.5K - meaning at $5K you'll be over 400 hours short.

Yes, someone may step up and do it for less - as a labour of love / hobby / because they want it themselves - or you'll get a "talented amateur" or someone who doesn't have the experience & skills and who'll drop the project when it become too tough - and I hope like hell I'm wrong about that - but I'm not.

How do I know? Because I'm a professional Coder, because I've already done the Ruleset-creation job and know how long it'll take, and because its my job as a Programme Manager to find people to do this type of work and have experienced all of these consequences before.

First Rule in setting up a software project (or any project, for that matter): set realistic expectations up front.

Guys! There's a reason there is no large pile of Rulesets, Character Sheets, etc - its not because they're not wanted, its because the people who want them aren't willing to pay for what they are truly worth. The economics of the the thing makes it unviable (as others have said and implied) for all but those willing to do it as a labour of love - and for really niche games there simply isn't the people who'll be willing to cough up the dough.

Case in point: everyone (hyperbole) said on these boards that they wanted the Ruleset Wizard (check the history!) but only 57 backers? That's not just a badly run Kickstarted (if it was badly run), that's a genuine lack of interest once people have to actually put their money where their mouths are.

2nd Case in point: how often do we see on these boards people complaining about the cost of FG and FG subs, and the "fact" that Roll20 is "free"? An FG sub costs less than a cup of coffee once a month, and yet people...

Again, just my $0.02 worth - from someone who's been there and done it

Cheers

[celestian]

This community needs to start a Patreon run by a trustworthy member. That trustworthy member acts as a custodian over the Patreon's funds.

The goal of the Patreon is to crowdfund things for Fantasy Grounds that SmiteWorks isn't working on.

Interested parties get the necessary permissions from SmiteWorks and from any game designers whose IP, copyrights, etc., are at issue.

A big blocker for this would be license. I only know this because one of the rulesets I'd love to work on is still hoping for that to happen.

Generating tools for people to create character sheets, rulesets, ref-manuals and the like would probably be easier to utilize as it would then by-pass the need for license (users just make their own).

That said, I'm sure most would still love to just buy everything they need for their "version" of the RPG they want pre-made.

[L. R. Ballard]

Most of the time it is lack of proper marketing, not that there are no people.

That’s true. Lack of proper marketing prevents products and services from selling. I doubt that empirical evidence would bear out the claim that that's the case "most of the time."

I don’t know if Valyar were responding directly to my post. But, in Damned’s example, fifty-seven people are “some people” rather than “no people.”

However, neither I nor Damned claimed that no people are interested in supporting crowdfunded projects. Damned offered that 57 people weren’t enough people to fund a specific project, and I agree that 57 is a small number to support the kind of work hypothesized.

Would proper marketing generate enough interest? Business-to-business copywriters like Bob Bly and Steve Slaunwhite will tell you that it depends on the number of qualified prospects you have—“qualified prospects” being people who may be interested in buying your product or service. If you’re prospecting online, it depends on whether you can even get qualified prospects to your landing page, let alone get someone to read the copy. How many people will actually read the copy and take the next step? An average direct response sales letter mailed out to people gets 2% response. Those are just people who are interested in learning more. The people who actually buy the product or service are even fewer.

I tend to agree with Damned that games outside the top 25 that people play on VTTs don’t have enough qualified prospects to make crowdfunding feasible.

[Segin]

We should not compare Roll20 and FG, because there is nothing to compare in this regards. Roll20 provides you with ... nothing. They didn't enhance their service since years and the "Charactermancer" or whatever the name is, is not that good. Yes, you have dynamic lighting and for ridiculous amount of 10 USD per month - access to the buzzword "API". The fancy they pretend it is, you are on the mercy of the JavaScript and the community. Their whole "environment" is run by the community and quite frankly, one of the reasons I stopped using this platform. I reported a bug that I can fix on my own in their javascript code and for more than an year nobody did a ****. Sorry, this is ridiculous.

Fantasy Grounds on the other hand, did something right - they made a framework. Amazing framework, but... still only a framework. Without proper tools for it to be used by non-technical people, it is just another niche thing with the full power of the framework accessible for few. If we get GUI and easy to use tools to develop ruleset/module/theme/skin and better documentation I am absolutely sure that the library will explode from rulesets and FG will get even more people using it. For example - the map editor of StarCraft. No need to say more, I hope.

I know my way around code and the only learning curve for me was how the hell the XML is organized and to learn the specific LUA programming specifics, as it is different than the scripting/programming languages I am versed with. I don't want to have second job at programming, I prefer having second job doing nice stuffs in FG for the hobby I like, with tools that are making my life easier. I can compare it to an open-source project, but the people who can fork or continue the project (when the owner no longer has interest to keep doing it) are significantly fewer.

In short - give us the tools and we will do the rest.

PS: MoreCore is fantastic. Must be in the Core.

I don't see any addressing this. This is what has made other things very popular, being accessible for the general community to contribute with a toolset (ie: the tools they need). NWN (yea, a game, not the same, but still) is an example. I am too new to know if FG has the tools in place for people to easily produce modules themselves or for the community. But from your post it seems it does not meet the goal completely at least.

*MR. Ihopeimpostinginthecorrectthreadbeforeigetjackedup *

[L. R. Ballard]

The OP stated:

I mean even if they hired 1 or 2 extra people and dedicated them to just making a functioning character/npc sheets (with the proper dice rolling) for systems it'd go a long long way.

Let me preface this next part by saying that I teach two discussion-based classes at the university. My task is to get high participation from the students. If that involves my losing a civil argument, then so be it. It helps that I also teach introduction to logic. Knowledge of logic makes it easier for me to state a good argument, which is a more instructive argument to lose than a bad one.

A fitting form for the OP’s argument is a disjunctive syllogism: If p, then q. / Not the case p. // Therefore q.

Let p be developing a game-specific character sheet, which the OP states would be satisfactory. Let q be using MoreCore, which Fantasy Grounds offers as an alternative.

Unfortunately, for Smiteworks to "just take the time to create fully functioning character/npc sheets with proper dice rolling for the games" would not be enough for the majority of people. They'll want customized combat trackers, customized items, spells, feats, etc., etc., etc..

Trenloe is arguing against the meaning the OP ascribes to p by claiming that “the majority of people” will reinterpret p to mean something other than the original poster states.

That may be true, but it’s a straw man of the OP’s original claim.

The OP’s strong thesis is, charitably, the development of a ruleset; his weak thesis is the development of a character sheet or NPC sheet.

Does the OP’s weak thesis—character sheet development—entail his strong thesis? Not necessarily.

To make his claim stronger, Trenloe would have to show evidence of a majority that consistently wants more than a character sheet or NPC sheet for any given system. Otherwise, one cannot be certain that he’s referring to a representative sample when reinterpreting the meaning of p.

What kind of money would it take to develop something along the lines of the opponent’s weak thesis?

I'm [sic] suspect if you came out and offered a community developer $5000 USD you would probably find someone willing to do it for you . . . but that is a reasonable amount for each system, i.e. 100 hr x 50$/hr).

Lord Entrails offers the $5,000 figure as a guess, but who does one get for $5,000? Maybe a logic professor is free.

Who said (apart from speculation) that you'd get someone (good) for $5000?

A Professional coder earns circa $75/hr and up, which puts a 500 hour project at approx $37.5K - meaning at $5K you'll be over 400 hours short.

For a ruleset. There’s the straw man again. According to Dulux-oz, $5,000 is a low estimate for a ruleset. Remember, though, that the OP offered a weak thesis for creating a character sheet or NPC sheet.

I grant Trenloe’s and dulux-oz’s arguments that $5,000 is not enough to hire a developer to code a ruleset for FG. It’s what we call in the United States a “lowball bid.”

But p was not proved false, simply reinterpreted. The OP follows up by reiterating the initial meaning of p:

I find myself disagreeing with you [Trenloe]! Although i have run a 5e campaign, and it was very good indeed, i find myself wishing that there was just a character sheet for [insert game here].

I introduced a possible solution as a Patreon that could fund feasible projects. A feasible project may be developing a character sheet or NPC sheet.

Crowdfunding to create a ruleset by the community, not controlled by SmiteWork? I would be very, very, very cautious with going this route.

In fairness to the OP’s argument, what Trenloe stated isn’t the OP’s argument. That notwithstanding, I agree with Trenloe’s cautious approach toward crowdfunding software program development. The wisdom of having SmiteWorks’ support on projects for its platform is also clear.