Fantasy Grounds Unity engine

[ddavison]

17917

DISCLAIMER: These comments reflect Tabletop Connect and do not, necessarily reflect any features of FGU.

I was going to add something similar based on our previous discussions about this, but I'm glad you did directly. One of the reasons why we were excited to bring Carl on board was specifically for his expertise in these areas. We agree with his assessment. FGU will at some point allow the use of new tile packs, but the plan at this time is for each of them to be developed and reviewed by us internally so that we can ensure that performance won't be negatively impacted. There might be cases where we can establish partnerships with 3D modelers and companies that have 3D models, but this will only shortcut the process and not give us something that can simply be plugged in.

[Bidmaron]

Couldn't the import logic just do a complexity chevk and reject it if was over a threshold?

This will be perceived as an effort to drive sales of models and lock out our ability to bring in our own stuff we currently enjoy.

These two posts seemed to be out of the blue

[Andraax]

These two posts seemed to be out of the blue

They seem to be responses to this post: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?22089-Fantasy-Grounds-Unity-engine&p=321102&viewfull=1#post321102

[JohnD]

Well right now you can load an official optimized map or you can load a 15 mb version of the same thing and wonder about slow downs, players taking forever to get the map, random crashes, etc... don't see how this is any different.

[ddavison]

It depends if it crashes the program or not. We can re-evaluate once we get there, but we are just sharing our current thinking on it. The difference with a map that is not optimized is that a map won't be used to tile an entire room or dungeon. Crashes, by their very nature can cause data corruption and loss of campaigns. Either way, we can weigh the pros and cons when we get there but we are leaning very heavily to the side of protecting you from these sorts of things and focusing on providing the best out of the box experience.

[Gooberosity]

Honestly, since everyone on FG is going to be coming from a top-down perspective, I don't know that you're going to have a lot of demand for render-quality 3D tiles out of the gate. This is something you can improve over time. In fact, I don't know that I would want to allow for a lot of 3D viewing of the maps in my games because it could distract from the narrative (I tend to get a bit verbose in my descriptions). That said, I realize I am just one opinion, and I also realize over time I will be interested in wiz-bang 3D features too... I just don't know that we need it 100% wonderful right now. Maybe 34.5% wonderful? :)

[ddavison]

Honestly, since everyone on FG is going to be coming from a top-down perspective, I don't know that you're going to have a lot of demand for render-quality 3D tiles out of the gate. This is something you can improve over time. In fact, I don't know that I would want to allow for a lot of 3D viewing of the maps in my games because it could distract from the narrative (I tend to get a bit verbose in my descriptions). That said, I realize I am just one opinion, and I also realize over time I will be interested in wiz-bang 3D features too... I just don't know that we need it 100% wonderful right now. Maybe 34.5% wonderful? :)

Can we borrow that for our new tagline?

Fantasy Grounds, 34.5% wonderful. :)

[Bidmaron]

So you are afraid that the model might crash unity even if the node count is low? Seems like that shouldn't be an issue?

[ddavison]

It's more than that. Any user import feature would also have to include new user interface options, validation of the input and dynamic loading of those external assets. That is all time spent working on those things instead of something else for something that would add very little benefit, and quite possibly a negative experience to end users. We are not completely ruling it out, but it is absolutely very low on the priority list for us to even investigate it further.

[Talley Darkstar]

Can we borrow that for our new tagline?

Fantasy Grounds, 34.5% wonderful. :)

I approve this message.

[Bidmaron]

Thanks, ddavidson.

[Fjolsvith]

Honestly, since everyone on FG is going to be coming from a top-down perspective, I don't know that you're going to have a lot of demand for render-quality 3D tiles out of the gate.

I do not know what your original top-down perspective is like, but I am sure that you do not speak for most people who have come from this:

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Lnz9heiVaQA/UB0QQwDIYkI/AAAAAAAAAVw/-SG8MXoC7ls/s1600/Dwarven+Forge+3.jpg

[Fjolsvith]

But seriously, render quality is not what I'm trying to get at. And, although I understand you devs have your "gaming quality" concerns, seems to me that many modern 3d engines already optimize for high vertex and polygon count. And besides, if me and my players want to wait a bit to enjoy OUR game, why can't we use OUR tiles? Because we didn't buy them on the FG website, perhaps?

Someone is eventually going to allow gamers to use their own tiles and scans of their own miniatures in a virtual tabletop game. Maybe an open source initiative. Maybe a competitor. Maybe Fantasy Grounds.

That's the gaming experience I am waiting for.

[Varsuuk]

I do not know what your original top-down perspective is like, but I am sure that you do not speak for most people who have come from this:

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Lnz9heiVaQA/UB0QQwDIYkI/AAAAAAAAAVw/-SG8MXoC7ls/s1600/Dwarven+Forge+3.jpg

So he is right, he is speaking for those playing on currently on Fantasy Grounds. Customers Smiteworks are likely to keep. You are representing another market of customers not yet in FG using physical (super great looking but expensive in space and cost/time) which I am sure SmiteWorks would like to get even if it is not a huge segment. However, as he said, it's about priorities and limit on what a bounded set of devs can deliver in a reasonable time frame so that the market doesn't move away while they are still designing it.

What comes later? Well, that's a combo of reasearch and again prioritization. We will hear more when they have more certainty in what to say and are ready to say it.

[Fjolsvith]

So he is right, he is speaking for those playing on currently on Fantasy Grounds.

And those people originally started gaming in FG? I think they came from actual tabletops where a majority at least used miniatures, if not the plastic tiles.

[Jay_NOLA]

Question on the 3D model. A couple of companies that sell popular 3D models that are widely used by games to make 2D art and 2D tokens. Do have license additional licenses and restrictions for use in Unity and in game making with the 3D mesh. (2d rendered images to use no problem, 3d mesh in your game problem.).

Willl you be doing some of arrangement with some of the more popular 3D content makers/distributes to have a can be used in Fantasy Grounds license?

[Gooberosity]

I do not know what your original top-down perspective is like...

A pencil, and some graph paper. 3D tiles like you display are actually relatively new when it comes to the history of pen and paper table top RPGs. We did have miniatures, but most of the group I played with used army men and chess pieces if we had to determine unit positioning.

[Jay_NOLA]

My groups used miniatures and counters. We also used a huge laminated graph one side/hex on another poster sized blamke map that was laminated with a grease pencil. We did use some tiles latter on.

One of my friends used repainted children blocks in the early 80s' to make walls and old LEGO sets when he DMed.

Miniatures were also expensive and a luxury for us. Do you want a miniature or module? The older gamer with more money had the miniatures, the kids and students, like me, with limited money had to watch what they bought.

The heavier use of miniatures and 3d dungeon building is more modern. With 3d printers getting even cheaper and more people accessing them for hobby stuff. You'll see more now that companies are making stuff for them. So people can now st buy the 3d printer file for your orc figure for what you'd pay for one and print out in a 3d printer as many as they need.

Miniature wise figures were bought by my group on a basis in most cases what you could get the most use out of or reuse to represent another type of creature/character.

One of my players dad used to professionally sculpt figures for a companies and said that it wasn't hard to make molds off of a figure or buy molds for gaming ones. The companies that did that didn't advertise much, but most games weren't aware of that back in the past compared to now when it comes to making your on figures and didn't have access to the resources to do so.

[Varsuuk]

And those people originally started gaming in FG? I think they came from actual tabletops where a majority at least used miniatures, if not the plastic tiles.

I started with pen and paper along with a blackboard when in D&D (unofficial) club in HS '80-83.

Miniatures for home play started in summer '83. It was on table top at first with no map, using figures for rough placement while referring to graph map players would draw themselves as I described layout and distances verbally (was fun, they were good but maps were more organic due to errors ... I miss that. If they did not move slow enough to map, I would only briefly describe distances and they could not map other than from memory later on.)

shortly? later I bought first writable mats. From then on and through various chessex maps we had bunch of miniatures for our chars and i'd buy sets for monsters I liked. otherwise, used a ton of white checkerlike stackable (had holes and pegs, forgot WHAT I got these from, I had like 50+) pieces where I stuck lime green stationary store "dots" where I wrote a number on. On my DM tracking sheet I'd write ogre(33) 2 orcs (11, 45) etc on the. and players would place their own figures.

I bought a $200ish (think dwarves forge, was early on in these things I think) at compleat strategist and we'd make a room or three plus tunnels as we moved along when mat wasn't enough. Mostly I'd take it out of closet but never used it much. It was intended for doing immediate surrounding of a dungeon crawl only but setup, build etc was a slowdown vs dry-erase on mat.

I mean, grew up on blue dungeon graph maps, the mats plus minis were way more than needed for our imagination. I mean I was only "pc game player" in our group in 80s so theater of mind was great for most.

So no, I didn't come from that. None of the people who joined my grew in 80s, 90s and briefly 00s had experience with diorama playsets either. granted, the number of players I speak of is less than 25-30 in those 3 decades.

[Varsuuk]

My groups used miniatures and counters. We also used a huge laminated graph one side/hex on another poster sized blamke map that was laminated with a grease pencil. We did use some tiles latter on.

One of my friends used repainted children blocks in the early 80s' to make walls and old LEGO sets when he DMed.

Miniatures were also expensive and a luxury for us. Do you want a miniature or module? The older gamer with more money had the miniatures, the kids and students, like me, with limited money had to watch what they bought.

The heavier use of miniatures and 3d dungeon building is more modern. With 3d printers getting even cheaper and more people accessing them for hobby stuff. You'll see more now that companies are making stuff for them. So people can now st buy the 3d printer file for your orc figure for what you'd pay for one and print out in a 3d printer as many as they need.

Miniature wise figures were bought by my group on a basis in most cases what you could get the most use out of or reuse to represent another type of creature/character.

One of my players dad used to professionally sculpt figures for a companies and said that it wasn't hard to make molds off of a figure or buy molds for gaming ones. The companies that did that didn't advertise much, but most games weren't aware of that back in the past compared to now when it comes to making your on figures and didn't have access to the resources to do so.


Ooo, forgot children's blocks. Christmas village pieces from decorations closets. occasional shoebox or old toy castles etc.

Except for HS days, I always used ral partha minis for the PCs themselves and had most generic villans from humanoids to giants with more random assortment of other stuff.

Also, the multi room/passages set I bought at Compleat Strategist (33rd St by Empire State Bldg) was definitely not 3D printered ;) was unless manufacturer used some early version in 98-2000.

[Full Bleed]

17917

Since this came up frequently with Tabletop Connect, I'll jump in here in an effort to manage expectations.

I downloaded a simple floor tile from OpenForge and, as you can see in the attached image, the vertex count of the tile is 1090. Compare this with the 20 vertices in a sample floor tile from Tabletop Connect. Even if the OpenForge tiles were practical for realtime rendering, you're looking at a difference in vertex count with a factor of 54. A typical Tabletop Connect map contains hundreds of floor tiles. With OpenForge data the vertex count of the map would quickly surpass 1M vertices. Additionally, there is other data and considerations when implementing terrain data—levels of detail, texture atlases, shader and material definitions, passability, etc. It was for these reasons, among others, that the importing of 3D models into Tabletop Connect was not a planned feature.

DISCLAIMER: These comments reflect Tabletop Connect and do not, necessarily reflect any features of FGU.
I think I'm following the logic... but why can't the 1090 vertex tiles be rendered down to a more compatible 20 (or whatever threshold was deemed workable)?

It seems to me, reading between the lines, that a part of Fjolsvith's concerns are really one of whether or not the advent of 3d VTT gaming will be tethered to a closed market or remain as open as 2d is. I think that's a concerns many potential 3d users would have.

I know, if I'm remembering correctly, that one of the cool features of TableTopConnect was that you could import 2d graphics to be used in a 3d environment. That approach was something I'd lobbied for on many theoretical threads about 3d VTT implementations for many years... and it was very nice to see someone follow through with that approach. Even better to see the FG crew absorb someone with the know how to pull that off.

As far as FG unity goes... I really hadn't thought much about 3d in it since Smiteworks has been quite obviously lowering expectations with regard to new features on it . The only promise is that we should be able to "do what the current FG does." I think we all expect that it will do more... but I'm not sure I've seen even a hint of 3d mapping and gameplay being on the near horizon.

[ddavison]

Importing of 2D assets shouldn't be a problem. We are planning on allowing that already. These will be able to be mapped to 3D assets like stand-ups for figures. It might be relatively trivial to allow texture packs and normal maps to be added for existing 3D models as well.

I think it is premature to have concerns about locking you into a specific 3d marketplace when we don't even have the basic components for it implemented yet. Baby steps. You will notice a large number of kickstarters spin up and they will promise everything under the sun and then fail to deliver on nearly any of these. We are just trying to be transparent about what is and is not feasible from our viewpoint.

[Fjolsvith]

I discovered a tool that might make something like that easy to implement. Check out the Open Asset Import Library (https://assimp.sourceforge.net/index.html). Its an open source import library that supports a large number of 3d object file types.

The viewer loads Open Forge tiles very nicely. Makes me want to get one of those laser scanners to see how my miniatures import.

[Bidmaron]

....
I think it is premature to have concerns about locking you into a specific 3d marketplace when we don't even have the basic components for it implemented yet. Baby steps. You will notice a large number of kickstarters spin up and they will promise everything under the sun and then fail to deliver on nearly any of these. We are just trying to be transparent about what is and is not feasible from our viewpoint.
And we very much appreciate the time out of your busy schedule to do so. Thanks! There was never anything better to happen to FG than when you purchased it. Not even Unity can compare to that.

[Ken L]

Interesting interpretation of what was written...


It just reaffirms why we don't make these details public.


I can understand not showing it - the wave of unsolicited feedback that follows would be pretty annoying for a developer.

My statements were inflammatory no doubt, but in the absence of information, there's nothing but speculations and rumors. I'm merely only giving an honest comparison with a real-world application.

<redacted work related stuff here>

I guess you could call me a 'disruptor' in the software space, but if I didn't ask the question, does it mean the problem doesn't exist?

Either way, Looking down the pages since then, I can see the progress done which looks good. Would be great if there was an official FG blog or news-reel for up-to-date developments.

[LordEntrails]

My statements were inflammatory no doubt, but in the absence of information, there's nothing but speculations and rumors. I'm merely only giving an honest comparison with a real-world application.

<redacted work related stuff here>

I guess you could call me a 'disruptor' in the software space, but if I didn't ask the question, does it mean the problem doesn't exist?

Either way, Looking down the pages since then, I can see the progress done which looks good. Would be great if there was an official FG blog or news-reel for up-to-date developments.
I didn't find it inflamatory. But others might have.

There are small glimpses from time to time about Unity (Doug talked about it in a recent podcast that was mentioned on the forums here a few weeks ago).

To me, something like an official blog or statement would only accomplish three things;
1) Sate some of our curiosity
2) Prompt a flood of speculation, opinions, and expectations
3) Take away resources from the continued development of the current and unity platforms

To me, not something I would feel would be beneficial to me as an FG customer.

[Ken L]

2) Prompt a flood of speculation, opinions, and expectations
3) Take away resources from the continued development of the current and unity platforms


Point #2 is pretty unavoidable. If you're a TES fan, TES:VI speculation is all the rage and it's aimless at that outside of argonia and valenwood being popular themes. The reason of keeping a tab on it, is again competitive market forces. Everyone knows FG is dated but I'd wager that a good chunk of us feel that the Unity re-write will bring with it modern improvements, especially with the acquisition of tabletop connect. Seeing things like Skirmish VT's shadow casting, roll20's ease of connectivity, and even d20pro's load-on-demand model while FG2 struggles on 32bit single threadedness leaves a sense of "are we stuck in the past?" The questions raised from the little update blurbs don't need to be answered, but it puts a cap on the amount of crazy speculation as it puts a compass needle on it.

It need not be a changeset or a demo, but a simple



FG 3.2.3:
- blah blah updates
- blah blah improvements
- blah ruleset now has blah

FGU:
- Lighting prototypes finalized
- Several XML to Unity window interface issues resolved
- Prototyping 3d/2d modes (TBD)


They need not be specific, but:

"The" <tedious> "arc of the" <development cycle> "may be long.. but it bends towards" <progress>
- Not Martin Luther King

Regarding point 3, I don't think it takes any resources outside the occasional blog post perhaps once a month that says "hey, this is what we're up to!"

[pindercarl]

@Ken L - The majority of the work on FGU is extraordinarily prosaic. FGU must, at a minimum, support the current functionality and, as importantly, all of CoreRPG. As you know, FG rulesets are defined in XML and driven by LUA, so a new implementation has any number of hidden gotchas and edge cases. The new UI is entirely hierarchical, which is similar to—but not exactly—the current FG implementation. Screencaps or updates, at this time, would mostly result in the reaction of "yep, that looks like Fantasy Grounds."

There have been some significant improvements to the formatted text control. I posted a screenshot of some text in another thread somewhere. The FGF font rendering has been replaced with SDF font rendering, so fonts can now be rendered at any size and still look smooth. Additionally, we'll now be supporting extended ranges that allow for text in foreign languages. You'll see other improvements, as well. For example, we'll support better inline formatting. The FG architecture uses state switches at the paragraph level, which is why text must either be a header or body text. The new text rendering let's you do inline changes to font, size, color, etc. The most interesting update is inline links, so that you can place links within the text, rather than adding a link list.

At the moment, I'm working on the updated image control. Which is really a rewrite of the image control. The new control will natively support layers, rather than relying on an extension. This requires the image control to support multiple images within the control, unlike the single image file in the current FG version. I do expect to post more screenshots as this develops. I do think it is something that the community will be interested in. Of course, the new image control has to properly interact with the database and have the expected LUA hooks. So that includes more of the utilitarian coding that is neither interesting, nor worthy of sharing.

Regarding point 3, there is surprising amount of effort required to effectively communicate development progress to the community. It doesn't seem like it would, but it does. We're a small development team that is both working on the new version of Fantasy Grounds, and maintaining the current version. Every cycle counts.

Also, I didn't find anything in your post to be inflammatory. We're cautious about what new planned feature we share. While we do have a minimum kill list for features in FGU, there are always some lurking around the edges that we'd like to target. I'll be disappointed if we aren't able to resolve, at least, the first four or five pages from the FG wishlist, but open discussion of which features may be targeted is tantamount to committing to those features. From my perspective, FGU has only been in development for the year or so that I've been on board. SmiteWorks has limited development resources and 5E consumed much of that.

In general, I prefer to let Doug and John be the official voices of FGU development. It prevents any miscommunication that we may have from becoming a miscommunication with the community.

[Gooberosity]

I was going to pull a few quotes about the above post to comment about, but the whole thing is gold. Thanks so much for spending the time to let us know what you're working on. Everything you mentioned sounds great.

[dulux-oz]

There have been some significant improvements to the formatted text control. I posted a screenshot of some text in another thread somewhere. The FGF font rendering has been replaced with SDF font rendering, so fonts can now be rendered at any size and still look smooth. Additionally, we'll now be supporting extended ranges that allow for text in foreign languages. You'll see other improvements, as well. For example, we'll support better inline formatting. The FG architecture uses state switches at the paragraph level, which is why text must either be a header or body text. The new text rendering let's you do inline changes to font, size, color, etc. The most interesting update is inline links, so that you can place links within the text, rather than adding a link list.

Thankyou Thankyou Thankyou! That's one thing that's been driving me batty as I put together Rules Modules for the Rulesets I'm working on. Better(?) formatting options in going to make a massive difference to the whole "look-&-feel" of FG - yes, its subtle, but the best improvments often are :)

[Ken L]

That's great news pinder, the SDF font sounds excellent given my resolution as I could never read those token name labels. It's good to hear news of FGU's development, all I prodded for was something more than a figment every 8 months or so.

[MarianDz]

thank you "Carl"

[leozelig]

Thanks for the post, Carl! Maybe that stuff seems boring on your end, but I still found your post interesting...

[pindercarl]

@leozelig - Believe me, I edited out the boring bits.

[Szabtom]

Thank you for a very interesting post, pindercarl.

[Elfuthark]

Really excited to see how this unfolds. Will you be looking Alpha & Beta testers? If so how can you register your interest?

[pindercarl]

There are no current plans to add alpha and beta testers, at this time. If we do, I'm sure there will be a notice posted in the forums. Thanks.

[gaara6666]

You could do alpha and beta testers with trial by combat. heh

[Galach]

Well, as I plan to make my move to completely ditch Windows from my life (I had a crash after a compulsory-mandatory Windows 10 Upddate which not only broke my system but also made me loose a lost of data in one of my machines), I started to wonder:

Will FG Unity run/there is a chance to FG run nativelly in Linux whitout Wine?

Since Unity itself is now Linux friendly and run without the need of Wine, it is enterely possible to run a new FG without using Wine at all (altough may be a lot of thec stuff involved).

I confess that I did not made an extensive search on this topic (the answer can be lying around), but I am very curious about this right now...

[LordEntrails]

Well, as I plan to make my move to completely ditch Windows from my life (I had a crash after a compulsory-mandatory Windows 10 Upddate which not only broke my system but also made me loose a lost of data in one of my machines), I started to wonder:

Will FG Unity run/there is a chance to FG run nativelly in Linux whitout Wine?

Since Unity itself is now Linux friendly and run without the need of Wine, it is enterely possible to run a new FG without using Wine at all (altough may be a lot of thec stuff involved).

I confess that I did not made an extensive search on this topic (the answer can be lying around), but I am very curious about this right now...
Yes

[Ken L]

Well, as I plan to make my move to completely ditch Windows from my life

Welcome to the flock.

Also your data isn't lost, you can use a bootable knoppix gnu/linux (or whatever flavor) usb and mount the drive to recover it to a usb hdd... Unless you actually reformatted.

sidenote: A bit sad that Google is ditching the Linux kernel in android for the Magenta kernel.

[Galach]

Yes

Thank you, I am now even more anxious for the FG Unity... lol


Welcome to the flock.

Also your data isn't lost, you can use a bootable knoppix gnu/linux (or whatever flavor) usb and mount the drive to recover it to a usb hdd... Unless you actually reformatted.

sidenote: A bit sad that Google is ditching the Linux kernel in android for the Magenta kernel.

Thank you for the welcome, but I am somewhat part of that flock - I use Linux on other two machines in a regular basis... lol

About the data loss, Win10 messed up with the UEFI/Secure Boot partition table some way, and after the boot it became non-existent (no partitions). I tried to recover the data, but whitout much success.

It was basically OBS recordings of gaming and FG, plus screenshots, but anyway, it was something I would use later.

Anyway, to Linux! lol

[Moon Wizard]

Our plan is to have FGU running natively on Windows, Linux and Mac when first released. We may have to adjust depending on how things progress, but that's the plan.

Regards,
JPG

[Wolfheart]

I was looking at the wish/votelist and I can't believe that dynamic lighting is #1! Maybe because most people play in FG with a tactical/miniature-like approach?
I'm fine with people wanting it of course, no offense intended but it makes me curious.
For me I'd say what I most desperately need FG to do is all about the dice.
Ideally FG would allow me to choose dice from a virtual tray (or bag, or bowl, or bottle... whatever) to put on the virtual table: Say, if I'm running a Star Wars game I could pick up sixteen d6 to array before me. One of a different colour of course.

And here's a market idea: Imagine FG comes with the standard polyhedral set (as now), but Smiteworks puts up, for a reasonable price, dice "expansion packs". You could buy neat 3D dice for The One Ring, for example, or a bag of just d10s cause that's your thing..or beautifully rendered dice with Espruar symbols, or crystal dice, or speckled dice.
Like a simulation of many roleplayers' dice collections.

I'd love to have a bunch of d10s on the table, but I don't play RPGs with d8s, d12s, d20s. And pick from different packs to get a nice colourful bunch. It would help MY immersion at any rate - a step closer to real life tabletop gaming.

And (aware I've moaned about this before) of course a premium VTT should have all manner of integrated dice roll methods, so as to make CoreRPG truly a basic ruleset that can be utilised for any game. Not even speaking of automation. Man I want this so bad. (Sure, I can use CoreRPG now without, say, exploding dice or rolling against Target numbers and just do the math, but it is inconvenient.

Ahem. Since I'm on a roll ;-) I also hope for an improved UI and in particular the way we access, view and edit maps. What a hassle. Isn't this more important than lighting?

What about character sheets, it shouldn't be that the sheets are already set, this too makes the universality of CoreRPG...less universal. Why not have open text fields and boxes so we can more quickly build our own sheets from an empty template? Take the main window of the NPC sheet. I don't need Languages, Equipment, Rolls there I want a portrait, main stats there. I should be allowed to arrange this stuff without taking a year off work to learn computerizationing. Same with character sheet, I want to emulate my favorite games' sheets, choosing where things go on what page of the sheet.

All right so everyone is happy because they play D&D or other supported rulesets, but I hope for some love for those who play other games.

Oh and not to mention the awkwardness of entering information (from a PDF especially). Copy/pasting doesn't really work, no hypertext, no embedding images in texts, everything must be formatted and edited even between two texts within FG (why doesn't a formatted text on a Story page keep its formatting when copying it to another Story page, this baffles me). I must add I just finished manually entering my fourth full RPG rulebook so I might be a bit grumpy about it just now. Once they're inside FG, though, all neatly setup with headers and links to art and stat blocks Yadayada it IS nice.

Final one to make or break the next FG for me: Connectivity, and by extension, integrated voice/video-chat and music streaming. I want it all in the same package. Preferably with neat "stonework" frames around the camera area so we look like we're inside a fantasy game like, say, Baldur's Gate or Eye of the Beholder.
(I do appreciate the fact you're not bound to any servers with FG, I do, but wow the hassle with TeamSpeak, Discord, Skype, Google+, whatever. If everything is integrated I'll stay firmly in FG and as a GM or player I want to immerse myself in the fantasy, not the technical obstacles.

Phew. Am I asking too much? Probably... Maybe these matters wouldn't matter if I ran or played D&,D. But I don't, so many of the features that make FG so awesome for people are featured I haven't bothered to learn. And that's fine, FG still looks neat and is helpful as my GM screen. But it's more hard work than fun gaming tbh.

Aaaand I'll show myself out. But again I'm not negative toward Smiteworks or FG, just hoping some of these dreams might come true :-)

Oh forgot​ to mention screen estate. But I guess everybody agrees FG needs to go from stretching the screen to moving/detaching/docking :-)

Cheers.

[Trenloe]

Ahem. Since I'm on a roll ;-) I also hope for an improved UI and in particular the way we access, view and edit maps. What a hassle. Isn't this more important than lighting?
You need to read more forum threads - especially those from the important people: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?37980-FGU-Images-and-Layers-Demo-Titles

:D

[Nylanfs]

Also check out the MoreCore rulest, it will the dice rolling you want i believe. And Doug has a video of making a custom char sheet.

[Wolfheart]

Hey guys thanks for not shouting me down which I guess could happen after such a post. Apologies if I came across as rude. It's just that I am excited and impatient (and a bit apprehensive).

I was aware of the thread but haven't read it closely, I'll do so, thanks.

I am aware of MoreCore but I think it's FG's biggest fail to not have this in place right out of the vanilla-dripping box.

[LordEntrails]

Hey guys thanks for not shouting me down which I guess could happen after such a post. Apologies if I came across as rude. It's just that I am excited and impatient (and a bit apprehensive).

I was aware of the thread but haven't read it closely, I'll do so, thanks.

I am aware of MoreCore but I think it's FG's biggest fail to not have this in place right out of the vanilla-dripping box.
I think your excitement was apparent. And I know I try to follow the example set by other here and always assume everyone has the best intentions and when possible interpret posts in a positive manner.

[Wolfheart]

I think your excitement was apparent. And I know I try to follow the example set by other here and always assume everyone has the best intentions and when possible interpret posts in a positive manner.

Thanks! I try not to talk about stuff like this too much because it can come off as needy and I don't want the developers here to feel I'm a nuisance or whatever, I really appreciate their hard work, videos etc but at the same time I want to be heard despite being a drop in an ocean of dungeons, dragons, pathfinders.. :-) Also (said this before too) I feel like FG at the moment is one of several VTT choices, but that it could be the ONLY choice (which would be a great benefit to the Smiteworks treasure chests).

They have a some truly dedicated users right here on the forum who IMO could be great assets in speeding up the development of FGU (if they wanted) cause me wanna now now now :p.

(If I had any skills of use I'd volunteer myself but I have to remain a commentator I guess.)

[kaeln]

As for me, I hope Unity is easier to understand and customize for the average "non-computer engineer" game master.

So far I have bought FG but have still been unable to use it as GM because it is such a hassle customizing it for unsupported games. MoreCore is definitely mitigating this to some extent, but I would love to see more flexibility built by default. A "what you see is what you get" approach would be nice.

[matsunoichi]

Final one to make or break the next FG for me: Connectivity, and by extension, integrated voice/video-chat and music streaming. I want it all in the same package.

I agree on pretty much all your points, including customizing audio sounders and audio streaming. I especially love the idea you had of custom dice. Not only would that look awesome, but little things like that would be a great monetizing opportunity for SmiteWorks and community-based content/asset creators.

Hi, from Celestian's thread, by the way. :)

The issue with voice/video chat, though, is that it would essentially be "reinventing the wheel," which is hardly necessary for a small team of developers, especially when the available options are so robust. I'm rather fond of Discord, especially after the tragedy of Microsoft's acquisition of Skype (and the admission by Skype developers that the legacy code is what's holding it back, but no one wants to start from scratch because it's such a huge undertaking). Any issues with Discord I chalk up to it still being in beta, but it's doing rather well for not yet being a complete product. So well, in fact, that other platforms, like Twitch, have begun aping its features and appearance (which I would concede also that Discord aped many features and the layout of Slack).

Also, as I mentioned in Celestian's thread, VOIP applications aren't meant for doing audio streaming for anything other than voice, at least not to more than one user. They're compressing for the human vocal frequency range, and when there are multiple output streams that compression level is going to increase the more users you have, so music or any ambient noise that falls outside those frequencies are going to sound like garbage. Streaming out audio through something like VLC, IceCast/SHOUTcast, or through other means, is a perfectly serviceable workaround in the interim, and doesn't require the opening of other instances of Discord, Skype, et. al., which means it's much lighter on system resources.

So back to the main point: I'm definitely for all the stuff you mentioned, and certainly for improvements and new features for audio, but have to agree to disagree on integrating voice/video chat. The development time and resources that would consume would be better spent on a host of other features in my opinion.

As for the topic of the thread itself, FG Unity, I'm really loving what I'm seeing so far. The only thing at the top of my personal list, and I realize it's pretty high up on everyone else's too, is better support for building or customizing rulesets. I've experience with development in HTML, XML, SQL, PHP, Perl, JS, and Python, and even with the documentation, attempting to modify an existing ruleset, let alone creating one from scratch, is, to put it lightly, a rather frustrating experience. MoreCore is a fine workaround and I greatly appreciate the work that went into it, but it's not as elegant a solution as actually building out a new ruleset.

That said, I'm very pleased with my Fantasy Grounds purchase thus far and look forward to FGU. Keep up the great work, guys!

[Full Bleed]

The only thing at the top of my personal list, and I realize it's pretty high up on everyone else's too, is better support for building or customizing rulesets. I've experience with development in HTML, XML, SQL, PHP, Perl, JS, and Python, and even with the documentation, attempting to modify an existing ruleset, let alone creating one from scratch, is, to put it lightly, a rather frustrating experience.
Yeah... I wish FG had a macro language closer to the scope, power, and accessibility of Maptool's. I don't think I've ever heard of such a thing being considered in FGU though.

[celestian]

Yeah... I wish FG had a macro language closer to the scope, power, and accessibility of Maptool's. I don't think I've ever heard of such a thing being considered in FGU though.

Be careful what you ask for.... Maptools macro language while great for simple things is not so great (terrible IMO) for a "ruleset". The limiting factor is the iteration/looping issue that limited it to 2-3. So... if you have a if() statement with a for() loop that was all you could do. So, bit of pseudo code and you can see what I mean....



if (strength > 18) {
for(item,inventory) {
carried_wt+= item.weight;
if (item.container) {
.... might break ...
for(contents,item.contains) {
.... break ....
}
}
}
} else {
}


As you can see just a simple bit of code would have issues. You can get around a lot of it by creating functions but believe me it's a mess and really frustrating. I wrote a framework for AD&D in Maptools and while it is great for maptools it was no fun AT ALL to write.

LUA is soooooo much better for me at least. You don't have some arbitrary issue.

I realize you probably meant "like" their macro language but it's just scarred me a bit and I had to vent a little.

If Tabletop Connect is any indication of the direction they take FGU I think a lot of these questions/issues will be resolved.

[swbuza]

Any chance of segregating client from server in the unity release to overcome hosting bandwidth issues?

[Moon Wizard]

We have no plans to change the peer-to-peer model for the initial release of FGU. We've talked about other models, and we may consider others in the future. No concrete plans at this point.

Regards,
JPG

[Wolfheart]

So back to the main point: I'm definitely for all the stuff you mentioned, and certainly for improvements and new features for audio, but have to agree to disagree on integrating voice/video chat. The development time and resources that would consume would be better spent on a host of other features in my opinion

--

I see your points, and I understand your reasoning. Of course if it takes away from developing the more pressing issues I agree (which is why I added it last). However, if they hired one or two people to specifically lock in a communication system?

As for resource hog, there could be a sort of cloud where the GM uploaded the music and/or sound effects he wishes to use and from which other players then stream (within FG, the GM clicks a "sound control button", FG finds the material on the cloud, kinda like how you gather all images in a folder on the hard drive through the Images function) and GM clicks the song he wants, which in turn "sends" the same file to the players (and one could pre-buffer these songs for example). Don't know how workable this is, I'm a geek not a nerd :-P

I'm thinking since most people use some kind of video-chat anyway, why not have it be a dockable window within FG? Give it a neat medieval-ish frame and there would be potentially no hassle because it's already integrated. Just click "Video On" and voila. Headaches saved, scruffy faces galore. To me at least facing players is a big deal at least when playing with friends. Total strangers..maybe not do important.

I mean if this stuff is already worked out for people with little patience or skill to employ umpteen outside programs it might lead to a larger username for FG which I suppose is the end goal right?

Why go FG when Roll20 offers you video, sound streaming (and all kinds of dice rolling to boot) for free? Uglier, yes; but oh so much more convenient. (Obviously if you're priorities are "high level of automation in D&D games" you're already set).

Final point here, video/chat/music streaming would of course be totally optional, to be turned on and off as you will. The more diverse ways of using FG the more players the more $

[pindercarl]

Voice and video chat is a topic of conversation, however, it is true that it is not currently a priority for rev 1 of FGU. As you have pointed out, there are other options available from third parties: Google Hangouts, Skype, Discord, etc. There are not third party options for Fantasy Grounds features, including mapping, improved networking, better formatting tools, custom dice, etc. If you look at the wishlist (https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/) these are, far and away, the most requested features.

As has been pointed out before, Roll20 is not really free. To fully function as a VTT, a subscription is a necessity. The last time I looked, the transmogrifier tool for Roll20 requires a Pro level subscription. This tool is the only method for moving characters, handouts, rollable tables, and so from one campaign to another. Even with the tool, you cannot move information from one account to another. This is significantly less functional than Fantasy Grounds modules and extensions. Additionally, a pro or plus level subscription is necessary for dynamic lighting and a pro level subscription is required for access to the API (scripting).

Rather than turn this into a thread of VTT comparisons, I'll end by noting that we do hear what you (and other users) are saying and we are listening. I can't think of anything in this conversation that we disagree with. I encourage you to please vote for the features you want on the wishlist and help get those features moved up to the front page.

[gaara6666]

I agree with Carl here. I would hate to have audio and video chat just for the sake of having it in an FG window. I prefer discord and teamspeak because they are also mobile capable through a phone which FG is really not. Why develop a feature when free alternatives supplied do it better? Plus this way if someone can't join a game they can still listen in as well as if they want to stream the game live it works better using a third party

[Wolfheart]

Voice and video chat is a topic of conversation, however, it is true that it is not currently a priority for rev 1 of FGU. As you have pointed out, there are other options available from third parties: Google Hangouts, Skype, Discord, etc. There are not third party options for Fantasy Grounds features, including mapping, improved networking, better formatting tools, custom dice, etc. If you look at the wishlist (https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/) these are, far and away, the most requested features.

Hello pindercarl, thank you for your post, really appreciate it. It's nice to hear that we're being heard, regardless. I understand your point, there are features more specific to the actual RPG aspect that must go first. And I agree, improved mapping, formatting tools, custom dice (especially custom dice or "digital dice packs" as I suggested above), they are all way more important than video/voice at this moment. As for the wishlist, believe me I've studied it and voted on it many times :) It was this list that spurred these last posts of mine, as I found it so surprising to find dynamic lighting the most popular item. That's personal of course: For me, lighting isn't a big deal, line of sight and light and all that is easy enough to imagine through roleplay. But that could be because I'm mostly a GM and so I look at it from just one side of the screen, for players I imagine this stuff is more important? Anyway.


As has been pointed out before, Roll20 is not really free. To fully function as a VTT, a subscription is a necessity. The last time I looked, the transmogrifier tool for Roll20 requires a Pro level subscription. This tool is the only method for moving characters, handouts, rollable tables, and so from one campaign to another. Even with the tool, you cannot move information from one account to another. This is significantly less functional than Fantasy Grounds modules and extensions. Additionally, a pro or plus level subscription is necessary for dynamic lighting and a pro level subscription is required for access to the API (scripting).

I also don't want to go into a comparison, as it has been done before, but at the same time I suppose, in the buildup to Unity, its important to compare to see what can be done to take FG far beyond the other available VTT choices (assuming the goal is to become the absolute number one choice for all RPers). It simply is not true that "as a VTT, a subscription is a necessity". I have GMed games on Roll20 for years without ever paying anything, and it does the most important things: I can use it for the dice mechanics of the particular game I play, I can do more than enough with the maps, I can undock windows to a second monitor, I can see my players and they see me, we hear each other, we can use tokens, and I can control and stream the appropriate music.
This is not me slamming FG (I wouldn't be here if FG didn't appeal to me right?). Thing is the Roll20 subscription features are nothing any of us miss at the moment. Now, FG is far superior at a few other things which is why I use it as a GM screen (until I can do the things I can't do in FG but can do in R20). I love preparing sessions, adding homebrew fluff etc. in FG, and that it keeps it there, and I am sure all the other unique elements (automation, combat tracker etc) are awesome, but (for the final time, promise) it is (not yet) the optimal choice unless you run or play the games that work well/are well supported. Of course, 98% (or so) play D&D 5th Ed so I can also understand why trying to please the remaining 2% isn't high up on the list. (And my hangup is that FG is so close to being the ultimate VTT :)
(Roll20 is in a way farther from being optimal than FG I'm just unlucky it has the features I need the most. Pricing really isn't an issue anyway, I already have a paid FG license)


Rather than turn this into a thread of VTT comparisons, I'll end by noting that we do hear what you (and other users) are saying and we are listening. I can't think of anything in this conversation that we disagree with. I encourage you to please vote for the features you want on the wishlist and help get those features moved up to the front page.

Again, thank you for chiming in and thank you for the work you're doing. It sounds like custom dice is a thing that will be incorporated and that one is so important to me that really I'm already satisfied.
Apologies if I come off as rude or anything, English is not my first language. Just my two cents no offense intended.

EDIT:
Just watched your preview on Youtube and it looks amazing and definitely superior :)

[Ken L]

I have GMed games on Roll20 for years without ever paying anything,.

Their model works because people like me paid 'pro' for years to subsidize free users. Running servers have a maintenance cost, especially if they're delivering a number of services. I eventually tired of their crowd sourcing model when they released 'one-click install' to get those not even remotely interested in learning the 'api' if they can pay to use contributor scripts; talk about milking your own customers to get others others in the door.. It reminds me of the 'exposure' arguments that artists have made though money isn't the argument, heck I dropped 175 at the drop of a hat for FG. It's the principle of profiting over something that is freely contributed, then going around hawking it.

FG was one price and I own all my content. I don't have cloud storage or what not but that costs maintenance and If I had that, I'd be renting my software yet again. I'm sure FG is working on some peer to peer model to try and gain these features but I wouldn't say it makes or breaks the platform. FG also feels old at times which is why earlier in this thread I harped a bit about the FGU silence but we're getting updates, and brings with it confidence.

I'll also note that Roll20's Free/Plus tiers are pretty good for what you get, but their Pro model is just bad; pay to contribute?

[Wookiee420]

Of course, 98% (or so) play D&D 5th Ed so I can also understand why trying to please the remaining 2% isn't high up on the list. (And my hangup is that FG is so close to being the ultimate VTT :)
(Roll20 is in a way farther from being optimal than FG I'm just unlucky it has the features I need the most. Pricing really isn't an issue anyway, I already have a paid FG license)



I disagree here, I GM 99.9345621% of everything i have done of FG and i consistently have found more players interested non 5e games than in 5e games, Savage Worlds for example is very very very popular on FG (and extremely lackluster on the competition), as well as all the products on MoreCore, as well as the new (and old) Pathfinder crowd. I even see people wanting and playing Star Wars more than on the other sites.

I'm going to avoid making any comparisons between the products, but i will say that using FG with programs dedicated to voice/video has worked infinitely better than any of the games I played in the 2-3 years I was using the competition.

Personally I love this approach that FGU is taking, making sure that it does the VTT right before adding those unnecessary bells and whistles that other dedicated software (skype/discord/ts/ventrillo) already does. I believe simple integration of said dedicated software using overlays and the likes would be a much better use of time and resources than any other option.

[Trenloe]

Yeah, there's plenty of games other than 5E being played on Fantasy Grounds. An overview here: https://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3507-Who-s-Playing-What-on-Fantasy-Grounds

[Asterionaisien]

I disagree here, I GM 99.9345621% of everything i have done of FG and i consistently have found more players interested non 5e games than in 5e games, Savage Worlds for example is very very very popular on FG (and extremely lackluster on the competition), as well as all the products on MoreCore, as well as the new (and old) Pathfinder crowd. I even see people wanting and playing Star Wars more than on the other sites.

I'm going to avoid making any comparisons between the products, but i will say that using FG with programs dedicated to voice/video has worked infinitely better than any of the games I played in the 2-3 years I was using the competition.

Personally I love this approach that FGU is taking, making sure that it does the VTT right before adding those unnecessary bells and whistles that other dedicated software (skype/discord/ts/ventrillo) already does. I believe simple integration of said dedicated software using overlays and the likes would be a much better use of time and resources than any other option.
I respectfully disagree with your wiew; The standard user just want to log in to play, and not to be bothered with connections and settings. The all in one formula is for sure a strong call. Fantasy grounds is really full of awesome technology, but lacks a bit as ease of use and graphical attractiveness.

[Wolfheart]

Yeah, it's way too user unfriendly, sorry to say. But I am sure that's the number one priority for Unity, to make it easier and more intuitive.
It's not because I'm lazy or too dumb to code something for FG, I just don't have the time for that on top of everything else and I'm already OCDing enough on my campaign prep.

And y'all can say what you want about ROll20 vs FG, the FACT is it lets me do what I need from online RPGing, and FG lets me do a lot of other neat things.
I hope for more videos like the one we saw about mapping, that was great to get a little insight into the future. And I hope Unity isn't too far off.

[Full Bleed]

Be careful what you ask for.... Maptools macro language while great for simple things is not so great (terrible IMO) for a "ruleset".
Will agree to disagree. The things I can (and have) done with MT's macro language outstrips what I can (easily) do with LUA in FG. Not to mention the constant extension updating and oversight that has to be done in FG to keep extensions working.


The limiting factor is the iteration/looping issue that limited it to 2-3.
There are so many ways to work around that. But I didn't mention it to debate MT's macro language. Only to note that I'd find a simple, high level, macro language in FG to be a killer add.

In my response to matsunoichi above, I was commiserating. My experience modifying FG has not been pleasant or rewarding. Whereas my experience tangibly modifying my gaming experience (like adding custom features and rules) using MT's macro language has been very different.

For example, in an evening I built a system that records all the rolls that players make. And they can move those results to short and long-term histories and see reports of how they've been doing. They can easily see their average, median, mode, etc. Accessing this is a click on their "Dice Karma" (on their custom character sheet which I can modify with a little basic html in a jiffy.) And, believe it or not, once players have that feature... they use it. A lot. It's a fun thing. Not an essential thing. Not something that I could gather enough support around here to prompt the devs to add to FG (I wouldn't even bother trying). But provide a high level macro language, the ability to create variables on the fly, custom properties on tokens, some places to easily store data (tokens, tables, libraries), and a couple hundred simple functions... and people will build all kinds of fun things that would, effectively, sit on top of FG without requiring the hoop-jumping FG's extension system requires.

Want to incorporate "Weapon Speed Factors" and "Spell Casting Speed Factors" in a custom Pathfinder initiative system in FG? I get a headache thinking about it... and heartburn thinking about fixing it when they might change something I'd have to touch doing it.

Bottom line: The stuff I've built in MT I can't (easily) add to my gaming experience in FG. And while I know that sort of thing really isn't their bread-n-butter, there are certainly users out there that would like something a little more accessible than the LUA extension option they currently have.

[celestian]

Be careful what you ask for.... Maptools macro language while great for simple things is not so great (terrible IMO) for a "ruleset".


Will agree to disagree. The things I can (and have) done with MT's macro language outstrips what I can (easily) do with LUA in FG. Not to mention the constant extension updating and oversight that has to be done in FG to keep extensions working.


Sounds like you're wanting simple things. Which as I said isn't a huge issue as you'll likely not hit the iteration/loop issues I mentioned.



There are so many ways to work around that. But I didn't mention it to debate MT's macro language. Only to note that I'd find a simple, high level, macro language in FG to be a killer add.


I mentioned they have work around but it ends up having nested functions... endlessly if you have even remotely complex code... which rulesets easily do.



Bottom line: The stuff I've built in MT I can't (easily) add to my gaming experience in FG. And while I know that sort of thing really isn't their bread-n-butter, there are certainly users out there that would like something a little more accessible than the LUA extension option they currently have.

If you've looked at the Tabletop Connect stuff it would seem if they do some of that in FGU at some point it will probably meet your needs. It seemed very point and click to do things... unfortunately until they release something we really just left waiting to see.

I've done in 2 months in FG what it took me about 1.5 years in Maptools. Make a AD&D ruleset... and when 3.3.0 came out it didn't break anything. To be fair I did have better resources in FG (building off of existing ruleset) but there are some major differences from 5e and AD&D. Perhaps it's just my needs but I've been extremely happy with FG so far.

[Answulf]

Regarding integrated voice/video chat - it doesn't even make the first two pages on the community wish list, so hopefully it isn't a priority at all. By my quick count it comes in at about feature #80. I think most people are content using other software in that area.

https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/?page=1

[Asterionaisien]

Regarding integrated voice/video chat - it doesn't even make the first two pages on the community wish list, so hopefully it isn't a priority at all. By my quick count it comes in at about feature #80. I think most people are content using other software in that area.

https://fg2app.idea.informer.com/?page=1
This is also about attracting new potential customers, not just the accustomed ones whom already had the time to find another solution.. or at least is what I think. I could be wrong , tho.

[matsunoichi]

If the goal is attracting new D&D players, I still think rolling in audio/video chat uses resources better spent on other features, like UI/UX and making it visually more welcome to players, and making things easier for content creators (more content == more eyeballs). Fantasy Grounds is available on Steam, and that's one of the best places for them to market the software. Steam also happens to have video streaming of play sessions in addition to voice chat built right into the client, so if it's already there, it doesn't make much sense to prioritize it. I don't think anyone is discounting the possibility, or even saying that it shouldn't happen at some point, but there are a lot of more important things that deserve the attention and resources that would require (and voice/video chat is a huge *huge* undertaking).

I'm just looking forward to the day when I can, with my limited time, rebuild the 4C/MSH FASERIP rulset in FG and not want to claw my eyes out like Sam Neil in Event Horizon.

[Full Bleed]

and when 3.3.0 came out it didn't break anything
Glad to hear it. But, look around, there are a lot of extensions around here that no longer work because they are no longer supported by the developers. Or extensions that just weren't finished or polished enough to take root. And with just about every significant update there are posts with people that have a problem with some extension or theme they've been using. That's a disincentive to make an extension because in addition to being able to make the extension in the first place I'd have to be knowledgeable enough about what's been changed and how it might affect what I've done, and what I'd have to do to fix it. If I spent the time building something, I did it for a reason... and it may very well be pretty integral to the game I want to play/run. The possibility of it arbitrarily disappearing would not be cool. So that indicates a level of commitment to the extension building process that a lot of users probably don't have (Props to those extension builders around here who do have it though! They've made FG much better for it.)

Yet, there has to be a reason why, despite the popularity of FG, that there aren't *more* modders. If FG wanted to open that up more, then I think it's pretty obvious that there are other options that could be explored.


Sounds like you're wanting simple things.
Sure. That would kind of be the point. FG already has a good amount of rulesets to build on. What I don't feel it has is simpler way to do "simple things". I'm more limited by what the rulesets give me.

[Andraax]

Yet, there has to be a reason why, despite the popularity of FG, that there aren't *more* modders.

One explanation is that "mods" are less needed in FG than that other system...

[Erin Righ]

Full Bleed, I don't know if you realize this but you are coming across like a person who just walked into my communal social space, looked around, and immediately espoused how the social space in HIS apartment building was WAY better furnished, and the games were considerably more up to date, but we should feel free to enjoy our quaint, lesser social space, but all the real people will soon be headed over to his social space anyway.

At least you are coming across like that to me

[Valacar]

If you've looked at the Tabletop Connect stuff it would seem if they do some of that in FGU at some point it will probably meet your needs. It seemed very point and click to do things... unfortunately until they release something we really just left waiting to see.


Hi and to clarify, as an initial backer of Tabletop Connect, Carl was working magic with the program and was a breeze to use to create awesome 3D dungeons, taverns, etc. Carl did merge with FG though so nothing will be coming out on the TableTop Connect front.

[Full Bleed]

One explanation is that "mods" are less needed in FG than that other system...
Absolutely true. But the guys around here that *do* mod FG are grade "A" contributors across the board. And a lot of their work has filtered into being permanent features in the software, making it better in too many ways to count. That doesn't happen if FG doesn't have the LUA scripting/extension system (which it hasn't always had). And my point is that an even more accessible system would invite more such participation. I don't see that as a bad thing. Nor do I see it as being overly critical to suggest or wish for such a thing.


Full Bleed, I don't know if you realize this but you are coming across like...
Maybe a rewind is in order.

Matsunoichi said this:



The only thing at the top of my personal list, and I realize it's pretty high up on everyone else's too, is better support for building or customizing rulesets. I've experience with development in HTML, XML, SQL, PHP, Perl, JS, and Python, and even with the documentation, attempting to modify an existing ruleset, let alone creating one from scratch, is, to put it lightly, a rather frustrating experience.

I felt it was a fair assessment (from someone, in fact, who appears to have far more formal programming experience than I do!) So I provided support and examples how a somewhat "dumber/simpler" set of high level scripting tools (similar to what MT has) might benefit FG. I was called out for "being careful what I wished for", etc... and I took the time to clarify with additional examples since I, apparently, wasn't clear enough the first time.

Not sure how that translates into trampling on your flowerbed.

IMO, FG excels at having the most polished rulesets around. And it has a strong extension capability that has contributed greatly to its permanent feature set. The stuff some of the guys have done prove that. But that doesn't mean it can't learn a thing or two from the orchard down the road when it comes to providing more accessibility.

I'm not sure what scripting (if any) Carl had in store for TableTopConnect... but if he did have something... and had done some ground work... I think it's fair game for people like Matsunoichi and myself to say, "I'd love to participate in FG modding more, but don't find the current system all that inviting." Imploring FGU to consider some remedies seems fair game for a thread dedicated specifically to the FGU "engine".

Maybe I went "too far" by actually offering examples that invoked another VTT, but I've always been the type of person that doesn't want to just hear people's suggestions. I like to hear their solutions.

[celestian]

Hi and to clarify, as an initial backer of Tabletop Connect, Carl was working magic with the program and was a breeze to use to create awesome 3D dungeons, taverns, etc. Carl did merge with FG though so nothing will be coming out on the TableTop Connect front.

Correct, Tabletop connect is not FG but as you mentioned they hired him, which, from my understanding, was to bring those types of features to FG ;)

[Erin Righ]

Maybe a rewind is in order.

...Maybe I went "too far" by actually offering examples that invoked another VTT, but I've always been the type of person that doesn't want to just hear people's suggestions. I like to hear their solutions.

I think this strikes to what the heart of my problem was, text is a sh!tty way to communicate, but it sounded like you were saying "This other program does it better, so you better shape up, FGU, or people will switch!"

I realize now that is not what you were saying, thanks for the clarification!

Erin

[Wolfheart]

Erin, I think we're all interested in Fantasy Grounds becoming the best it can be.
I can't speak for Full Bleed, but to me he sounds like someone who is also interested in this :)

I realize that we are visitors at the House of Smiteworks here (so to speak) and we should keep things civil and all that, but at the same time if we have (possibly strong...) opinions we should put them forth, no? I don't think it's wrong to call out someone for perhaps sounding overly critical or whatever, but I hope you agree we should be able to discuss the eagerly anticipated Unity project.

Now, a few posts earlier I do -almost- say "Better shape up, FG!" but not because other VTTs will necessarily drive FG away, but because FG has the (IMO) best shot at becoming the ultimate, best, only-VTT-necessary: Monopoly! I wish Smiteworks all the success, and, as pindercarl's post shows, they listen to their fans, so I believe it's 'safe' to have a contrary opinion here. Nobody is slamming or harassing anyone, at any rate :) Just an opinion, no offense intended (and sorry if I misunderstood your post).

*


Absolutely true. But the guys around here that *do* mod FG are grade "A" contributors across the board. And a lot of their work has filtered into being permanent features in the software, making it better in too many ways to count. That doesn't happen if FG doesn't have the LUA scripting/extension system (which it hasn't always had). And my point is that an even more accessible system would invite more such participation. I don't see that as a bad thing. Nor do I see it as being overly critical to suggest or wish for such a thing.

I agree. If a FG user can open FG, set up a new campaign, and at his fingertips have the options to customize his/her table so that it works best for him/her...without the work (it's fun to some, work to others) of getting into .xmls and LUA, all the better for FG/Smiteworks.

Since we all have different wants and needs it's going to be impossible to cater to everyone, of course, but if CoreRPG can be more customizable right out of the box...yes, that should be a good thing.

Example:

It needs less premade and more do-it-yourself templates, is what I'm trying to say. I want to go into FG and be able to
a) pick a character sheet from those available / premade; naturally, if I'm going to play or run a D&D game I'll just pick the already existing, automated and awesome D&D sheet,
or,
b) open a "template sheet" where I can re-arrange all windows by size, width, text etc. to make it close to a game's character sheet that doesn't already exist within FG. Say, if I wanted to play a game of Reign: A Game of Lords and Leaders (it's a great game), I could open an empty template and build a character sheet specifically suited to this RPG. I would not expect it to have any of the bells and whistles of a fully supported ruleset's sheet, not at all. But I wouldn't have to learn computer programming to get a sheet I liked either.

(Same goes for a number of other UI elements - this was just an example.)

Will this make FG more generic? Maybe, but not if it's optional I guess? Could it draw more people? I don't know. But maybe there isn't more discussion because most people are content (with the majority playing supported rulesets, I mean), and as such it doesn't truly matter just how customizable the next FG is. Very interesting topic though!

[Ken L]

I think this topic might need to be closed given how swing-y it has become. It's diverged so much from the original topic.

Too many side conversations occurring that might deserve their own thread.

[kevdog45]

What is the advantage or disadvantage to getting a ultimate license, 145 dollar one, now vs. just waiting until Unity comes out. I currently have Ultimate on subscription but if getting the full package would be beneficial when the transition happens I might consider doing it before the transition occurs.

[LordEntrails]

What is the advantage or disadvantage to getting a ultimate license, 145 dollar one, now vs. just waiting until Unity comes out. I currently have Ultimate on subscription but if getting the full package would be beneficial when the transition happens I might consider doing it before the transition occurs.
Who knows? Details have not yet been defined.

Doug has said several times that when FGU comes out their will be a tiered approach with suggestions on how much should be paid. I hope they institute a minimum, but they may not.

I would suggest you buy or don't buy the perpetual ultimate license based upon your needs now. And don't try to speculate on the future. IMO, you might just end up feeling poorly if you do.

[Moon Wizard]

Yes, we always recommend people buy based on what we offer today.

For FGU, we have not committed to any features beyond what we offer today (and any added in the live version over time). We do have several ideas for cool things that Carl is working on, as well as new networking, image handling and more under the covers. However, we don't want to disappoint anyone if we have to change things before we get FGU out the door. Also, we have not committed to a date for FGU, and we won't until we're a few months out from planned release. It's a very large ongoing effort, and it gets all the upgrades that happen in the live version along the way.

Regards,
JPG

[Kyuss11]

I hope that they will not charge another 150 bucks for a ultimate license for the Fantasy Grounds Unity.However if they propose the concept of it being a new system all together then any books we have bought for all editions should automatically come imported to new FGU.I also think that 150 bucks will be a lot for some to invest in again,but I would pay 60 bucks easily for the new upgrade model.Once again the books should be able to be imported.I love FG and this is just my opinion.

[whiteTiki]

I hope that they will not charge another 150 bucks for a ultimate license for the Fantasy Grounds Unity.However if they propose the concept of it being a new system all together then any books we have bought for all editions should automatically come imported to new FGU.I also think that 150 bucks will be a lot for some to invest in again,but I would pay 60 bucks easily for the new upgrade model.Once again the books should be able to be imported.I love FG and this is just my opinion.

I was once exactly in your position, and believe it or not, Moon Wizard gave me the same advise he just gave you (not saying it was a copy/paste)...
Now, after some time now, I must tell you that following his advice is the best thing you can do. Some time ago I was doubting about buying the D&D 5e complete bundle or not because of the same reasons and inconveniences you have now, until one day I simply said: Ok. I'll buy everything and hope for the best.... 8 months have passed since that and everything has been excellent as always; the community, support, product quality, I can now be DM in several tables since the modules I bought save me a lot of time and best of all, I've been playing Adventurer's League, DMing adventurer's league, etc...

So, in short, of course it depends on your needs and some other external stuff you might need to consider. And believe me when I say: I struggled a lot with the decision myself, but in the end, if you simply forget for a moment what FG will be in the future and start enjoying it now for what it is, you'll find yourself having a lot of fun in the upcoming months while we all wait for the Unity version. FG really is a great software right now and the modules are great enough for anyone to enjoy. So when you meditate it and think about it please think of this: I've been a member for almost 2 years now and I've learned that SmiteWorks is not a company that will let their clients down in any way. I've also learned that they really have a mission and are commited with it and with their clients.

Just my opinion of course, I hope it helps.

[LordEntrails]

I hope that they will not charge another 150 bucks for a ultimate license for the Fantasy Grounds Unity.However if they propose the concept of it being a new system all together then any books we have bought for all editions should automatically come imported to new FGU.I also think that 150 bucks will be a lot for some to invest in again,but I would pay 60 bucks easily for the new upgrade model.Once again the books should be able to be imported.I love FG and this is just my opinion.
Don't worry.

Time and again Doug and John have stated (including in this thread) that all current functionality and DLC (modules, reference books etc) will be forward compatible. There may be an "update" process that make it forward only (i.e. not able to go back), but everything you have bought from SmiteWorks will be usable or updated for FGU.

Doug has also stated repeatedly that their will be an upgrade cost, but it is likely to in the realm of $15 USD. And that it will be a "suggested" amount.

Again, I will say, don't worry. I say this because at 46 years old I have dealt with a lot of companies as a customer. Both as a consumer and a professional customer. By and far, SW is the most customer focused company I have dealt with. They go out of there way to take care of their customers. They will take care of us when FGU comes around.

[Kyuss11]

Hey WhiteTiki I appreciate the advice but I do have fun playing Fantasy Grounds right now,lol. I've invested almost 600 bucks into this and all I'm saying is I can't wait for the new features.Like the last video that showed with the multi layering map building and cool rain,snow effects,gets me excited to be apart of FG right now.I used to play Maptools and created a multi-version of Rumbles 4e campaign pack with macro coding that allowed a huge range of customization.Maptools has the map making software with a dynamic lighting feature.Hopefully soon FG can add to there feature list like that of Maptools and Roll20 and truly become a full package of all.There is however one more feature that I would like and that is the ability to write macros for some of the campaign and map asset ids we place in the map.For example a macro trigger feature so when a player walks on a trap it sets it off,or a Paladin's aura of protection would apply to ally when moved into range.I've created these features in Maptools and I wish FG would allow these features but it's only a dream.

[pindercarl]

.Maptools has the map making software with a dynamic lighting feature.Hopefully soon FG can add to there feature list like that of Maptools and Roll20 and truly become a full package of all.

This was posted quite some time ago, so you may have missed it.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVppbivpWS0

[computertrucker]

how far out is unity?

[LordEntrails]

how far out is unity?
Unknown. SmiteWorks has stated several times that they will not announce a date or estimate until they are within a few months of a certain release date.

Based on my own desires, I was hoping it would be ready for GenCon in August. But that's only a few months out and no announcement has been made so that seems unlikely.

[yeknom]

Unknown. SmiteWorks has stated several times that they will not announce a date or estimate until they are within a few months of a certain release date.

Based on my own desires, I was hoping it would be ready for GenCon in August. But that's only a few months out and no announcement has been made so that seems unlikely.

Maybe we can get it as a Christmas present then :)

[Nyghtmare]

Maybe we can get it as a Christmas present then :)
Merry Christmas... to us?

[harrisben]

It was nice to see Doug on the D&D Stream of Annihilation today, but it was a bit deceptive to be showing features only planned for FGU when the release date is still TBD. If I were someone who signed up expecting what I saw in that video I wouldn't be happy.

[g0ntzal]

Could you share the link to that video, please? Thanks in advance...

[ddavison]

There was supposed to be an out lead for the video where they asked what was in store for the future of Fantasy Grounds and I was supposed to introduce Fantasy Grounds Unity and then share that we had a video. I think everyone on the production crew was getting pretty tired by that time in the day, so that little bit got cut. I was caught a little off guard by that too. I hope it doesn't cause too much confusion. Thankfully, the video says something like "The future of Fantasy Grounds" in the lead title screen.

We will be posting that video up for public consumption next week.

[celestian]

I hope it doesn't cause too much confusion. Thankfully, the video says something like "The future of Fantasy Grounds" in the lead title screen.

We will be posting that video up for public consumption next week.

I'm fairly certain it said something like "coming features" or some such.

[Patou]

There was supposed to be an out lead for the video where they asked what was in store for the future of Fantasy Grounds and I was supposed to introduce Fantasy Grounds Unity and then share that we had a video. I think everyone on the production crew was getting pretty tired by that time in the day, so that little bit got cut. I was caught a little off guard by that too. I hope it doesn't cause too much confusion. Thankfully, the video says something like "The future of Fantasy Grounds" in the lead title screen.

We will be posting that video up for public consumption next week.

Can`t wait Doug!

[Patou]

There showing the Roll20 video though....
:( not fair to FG.. Vengence I say... lol

[ddavison]

Here is the full video:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/149213039

[Beerbelly]

So, I know there is no release date for those new features. I am especially interested in the line of sight for characters. And I hate to beat the dead horse, but are we thinking 2017 at this point? 2020? Is there a quarter that it's release is being aimed for?

[Zacchaeus]

So, I know there is no release date for those new features. I am especially interested in the line of sight for characters. And I hate to beat the dead horse, but are we thinking 2017 at this point? 2020? Is there a quarter that it's release is being aimed for?

No dates have been given and no estimate of a date either. I fear that patience is the key here.

[ddavison]

We still have no ETA and we don't plan on announcing one until we think we are several months out. Progress is steady, but any prjoected dates we would have released in the past would have been wrong already. :)

[Nylanfs]

Just use this Doug, Soon(tm) (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealSoonNow)

[anemeth]

nvmd

[azamboni]

We still have no ETA and we don't plan on announcing one until we think we are several months out. Progress is steady, but any prjoected dates we would have released in the past would have been wrong already. :)

Maybe there is already an answer to this question but i wasn't unable to find it...

With the new FG Unity will we have a backward compatibility with the home-made modules like the one with Par5e?

Thanks in advance

[Zacchaeus]

Maybe there is already an answer to this question but i wasn't unable to find it...

With the new FG Unity will we have a backward compatibility with the home-made modules like the one with Par5e?

Thanks in advance

Yes

[Kitsune Zeta]

So I've got two questions that may have been answered already, but I can't locate the answers if they have been answered:

1) [edit: answered already] With regards to ruleset compatibility between Fantasy Grounds Classic (or whatever the current iteration will be called) and Fantasy Grounds Unity, any idea what the process will be for converting a community-made ruleset from FG Classic to FG Unity will be? Will it have to be done from scratch (which I hope is NOT the case)? I mainly want to avoid having to completely redo a ruleset from scratch once FG Unity comes out, though at least some of the other questions that were answered seem to imply you won't have to. [edit: answer, as of page 1 of this very thread: it looks like the smiteworks is intending on having rulesets be compatible with both versions.]

2) I've seen mention of "fully customizable dice" on the feature list for FG Unity, but I don't recall seeing any actual details about that feature. Have I missed the info on that somewhere, or has Smiteworks not actually said what that allows yet (and how they work)? Will stuff like individual die colors (for stuff like SW's Wild Die) be possible under that?

[LordEntrails]

S...
2) I've seen mention of "fully customizable dice" on the feature list for FG Unity, but I don't recall seeing any actual details about that feature. Have I missed the info on that somewhere, or has Smiteworks not actually said what that allows yet (and how they work)? Will stuff like individual die colors (for stuff like SW's Wild Die) be possible under that?
I haven't seen this detailed. But I have heard about the ability to add custom textures/skins to the dice. So you can have marbled or translucent etc dice. Have not heard if individual dice can be skinned differently though.

[Frunobulax]

Our plan is to have FGU running natively on Windows, Linux and Mac when first released. We may have to adjust depending on how things progress, but that's the plan.

Great news (to me) about Unity! It will be super sweet having a native Linux version! Moving to Unity is a great choice.

I've been using Linux since it came on floppies and you had to custom compile each kernel. I've been a UNIX sysadmin for almost 25 years and have previously been a (paid, professional) game designer. If you need any volunteers to help test on Linux, I happily volunteer!

[pyrate]

Yep, I second/third the excitement about FG being available on Linux as a native install. I am slowly migrating away from Windows to Linux/Mac with all my machines. I have had Macs, Windows, and Linux machines for years; however, as my windows machines reach end of life I am running Linux on them and not looking back.

In fact I really avoid software that is not cross platform if I can. Thanks for all your hard work!

[Frunobulax]

What are your thoughts on beta? I imagine you will eventually need a bunch of beta testers. Can I be first on the list? ;-)

I have Unity installed, 30 years IT and development experience, versioning tools like Subversion, and experience as a paid QC tester and game developer at a big game company. I know the whole process and make good bug reports!

[Moon Wizard]

We're not currently at the stage where it makes sense to involve beta testers, though I'm sure we'll be asking for volunteers when we're ready for that step.

Regards,
JPG

[belkasro]

Better network adaptation, map making, line of sight and all the vid below. With people holding the ultimate licensed. Will there be a full price or upgrade price.

https://youtu.be/4FjwaYqdAbM

[LordEntrails]

Better network adaptation, map making, line of sight and all the vid below. With people holding the ultimate licensed. Will there be a full price or upgrade price.

https://youtu.be/4FjwaYqdAbM
Is that a question?

Assuming it is, no price structure has been announced. There has been mention of a tiered price based upon how long you have owned your license as well as talk of a pay what you want upgrade price. We will have to wait until close to release to find out what actually come to be.

[Klandare]

Is that a question?

Assuming it is, no price structure has been announced. There has been mention of a tiered price based upon how long you have owned your license as well as talk of a pay what you want upgrade price. We will have to wait until close to release to find out what actually come to be.

Do we know yet if the demo version (if there still will be one) is going to allow for players to connect to unity without having to pay anything?

[LordEntrails]

Do we know yet if the demo version (if there still will be one) is going to allow for players to connect to unity without having to pay anything?
I've never heard anything from Smiteworks about them changing the types of available licenses. Though they might make licensing changes at the time of Unity rollout, I'm sure they will keep demo functionality (it's important marketing tool) and many of us who have Ultimate licenses specifically purchased them to allow demo players to connect.

Do note, that we do expect that both the host/GM and the players will all need to be using the Unity version as cross-platform support is not expected.

[Dipset]

Any update on when the switch will be coming? I know it is an annoying question but I really like FG and want to keep using it going forward. however, some of my group is having problems and the issues FG has are starting to grind on them.

I've invested heavily in FG with both cash and time so I do not want to stop using it. Can anyone give us an update on a time-frame for the update?

[Trenloe]

No detailed information regarding timeframes as yet.


however, some of my group is having problems and the issues FG has are starting to grind on them.
What issues are you having? FG Unity is primarily a conversion to a new technology platform, keeping the current ruleset code, modules, etc.. So, just changing to Unity may not address your issues. I'd recommend posting a thread in the relevant Forum (house of healing or the ruleset forum) listing your issues. They could be something the community can help with.

[ddavison]

Thanks Trenloe, that is correct. We don't yet have an ETA on won't announce one until we think we are within 3 months of a beta release. So... we know it is at least 3 months out and potentially much longer.

As Trenloe suggested, please do post a new thread or reach out to us at [email protected] for any current issues you are facing.

[Dipset]

That is incredibly disappointing to hear.

I will most likely be taking my business (as an ultimate subscriber and full D&D bundle holder) elsewhere if there is no time table on the update.

[Andraax]

It's a shame you can't just tell us what your problems are so we can suggest fixes...

[Talyn]

This is the problem with people taking hype and amping it up to unreasonable expectations. See: No Man's Sky and Star Citizen. FGUnity isn't going to be the Messiah of VTTs out of the gate. It'll fix a few technical issues immediately, but the launch goal is 100% backwards compatibility with FGClassic.

So if you don't bother to state what your players' issues are @Dipset, no one will know how to assist them, and it's foolhardy to assume that an architecture change will magically dismiss those issues from existence.

[belkasro]

@Dipset


Clearly you never did software development or any form of programming. Rather wait and have a almost bug free (with unity there always be bugs in future updates) with compatibility with the current Rulesets and add ons. If took any class or even seen dev videos there is always uncertainty. Plus smiteworks does not have a publish as far as I know and thanking Pelor it's not own by EA. I've worked in the gaming industry and its best to perfect any product or you get EA hogwash repeatedly made games. Plus I agree Talyn and Andraax, if can't tell the issue, don't really have a right to complain.

[Moon Wizard]

We know that the Unity version has been in the background for quite some time. One of our goals when starting the process of re-architecting a solution is ensuring that our product continued to move forward, and that all of our content (almost 800 DLC) are backward compatible. This means that Unity has been getting primarily developed in our "spare" cycles, which is why it's taking a long time. However, all the enhancements we have made over the last couple years are all forward progress that work for our current users as well as in FGU.

Just to clarify, our official position has always been that our goal for FGU is to provide a new architecture to handle our growing needs and to be backward compatible. While Doug and Carl have teased a few videos of features we really want to include (and even have mostly built), Fantasy Grounds is a complex product, and we want to set expectations accordingly.

You'll find that most small companies that attempt to re-architect their product typically crash and burn, because they promise the world and abandon their current product version until the new one is complete. We plan to be around for the long haul, and so we are bootstrapping and growing in as many ways as we can to keep the business strong.

As the others have mentioned, if you have particular issues, it's best to put those in writing. There may be solutions or workarounds for your situation that the community can suggest, or at least let us know what missing features you find the most important as we continue to work on FGU.

Regards,
JPG

[LordEntrails]

Everyone, let make sure we don't come across as defensive or antagonistic. I know it's easy to be misinterpreted when we are only communicating via the written word.

@Dipset, please do take everyone up on their offers of help. The community is more than willing to help where they can.

[Frunobulax]

I understand that it is a platform update and not a complete revamp, and I understand how long software takes. The reason I'm sad about it taking so long isn't minor bugs, it's that I want lots of new stuff that Unity makes possible. I want 3D animated graphics, spell effects, and sound. I want a native Linux version. I want more bells and whistles. I especially want the RMC ruleset improved (CordRPG etc) so it has all the same features as the others, but poor Dakadin is clearly working at max capacity and generously donating his spare time, so I feel guilty complaining about that. Take a look at the Game Master Mode in "Divinity: Original Sin 2" that will be released next week: THAT is what I want. It's clearly do-able.

Take a gander at this - this is what we want: https://youtu.be/X2OCwSqVN8c Here is the full article: https://www.polygon.com/2017/5/9/15589492/divinity-original-sin-2-game-master-mode-gameplay-video-dungeons-and-dragons

I get that Smiteworks didn't get a $2 million Kickstarter, but... maybe it's time to consider one? I bet FG fans would back it muchly!

[Frunobulax]

The more I think about it, the more I think a Kickstarter or Patreon campaign to get the Unity version done is a great idea. You could use the money to hire some additional programmers with tons of Unity experience. Backers could get a free upgrade to the new version when it comes out, Smiteworks gets its new version and maybe lots more sales. Win/win! When SO many game companies are successfully using this model, why miss out?

[Moon Wizard]

It's definitely something we're keeping open as an option, and we talk about regularly.

Cheers,
JPG

[celestian]

This is the problem with people taking hype and amping it up to unreasonable expectations. See: No Man's Sky and Star Citizen. FGUnity isn't going to be the Messiah of VTTs out of the gate. It'll fix a few technical issues immediately, but the launch goal is 100% backwards compatibility with FGClassic.


Sorry, but this is not really the same thing.

The "hype" is more for features that already exist in FGU (already shown in demos) for a lot of folks. LOS, lighting/etc. Much better map tools and compatibility (memory issues) and the assurance our existing products continue to work.

I don't know anyone in my cluster that is expecting anymore than that. All of them impatiently waiting (including me).

[Dipset]

Sorry, but this is not really the same thing.

The "hype" is more for features that already exist in FGU (already shown in demos) for a lot of folks. LOS, lighting/etc. Much better map tools and compatibility (memory issues) and the assurance our existing products continue to work.

I don't know anyone in my cluster that is expecting anymore than that. All of them impatiently waiting (including me).

Precisely this.

[Paleotech]

From your previous posts it appears you've received nothing but exemplary service and support from Smiteworks and have been happy with that attention and issue resolution. Suddenly today you feel you need to take your business elsewhere because they won't provide you a firm date for software in development?

Am I understanding your recent posts accurately?

[Moon Wizard]

Referring to what celestian and Dipset are referring to, those features are prototypes that have not been fully integrated into FGU completely, because all the plumbing necessary to support those features still needs to be fully fleshed out (saving/loading, UI tools, image asset selection UI, etc.). However, they make great examples of what we want to do, so Doug wanted to show them off. Additionally, we're still working on a lot of the plumbing for the old stuff, while working on the new stuff.

We're fine with people expressing their opinion on the product and our direction. It helps to inform our decisions.

So, I think there's no need to delve into Dipset's statements. It's just a statement about how he feels about our roadmap planning, which I can understand. I just want it done too. Let's just offer support and help as a community where we can, and we'll do our best to keep the ship moving forward.

Regards,
JPG

[Dipset]

Going forward, my piece of advice is to not show something off if you do not plan on releasing it any time soon. it is very frustrating to see highly desired features being used in a video, asking about said features, and then not getting any idea on when they will release.

[DrakosDJ]

I will respectfully disagree here. I like to see the "whats coming" type of stuff. Otherwise we get no news and people start to think that no enhancements are coming. Also, them showing the amazing features is letting us see that the wait will be worth it.

The attitude displayed here is why the devs don't like to interact with the community. We see something and say "... we must have it NOW". Would you prefer to here nothing until it is ready? I wouldn't.

[celestian]

Referring to what celestian and Dipset are referring to, those features are prototypes that have not been fully integrated into FGU completely, because all the plumbing necessary to support those features still needs to be fully fleshed out (saving/loading, UI tools, image asset selection UI, etc.). However, they make great examples of what we want to do, so Doug wanted to show them off. Additionally, we're still working on a lot of the plumbing for the old stuff, while working on the new stuff.


Good point. Still, can't wait to get my hands on the stuff. Looks great!

[OTG_Wraith]

I will respectfully disagree here. I like to see the "whats coming" type of stuff. Otherwise we get no news and people start to think that no enhancements are coming. Also, them showing the amazing features is letting us see that the wait will be worth it.

I agree. Besides, this practice is the norm, not the exception. People expect some sort of notice of planned improvements whether they be roadmaps, dev notes, or alpha videos. In fact, I know on no entertainment software studio that doesn't give their customers some kind of information on upcoming features in advance of a release date. This is far from aberrant behavior.

[leozelig]

I also like to see what's coming. The devs showed us nothing for quite some time, and some of us were really pushing for a teaser. In general, Smiteworks has been careful about keeping expectations low for the initial release (timing and features). I think many of us are feeling a bit restless at this point, but we just have to wait :)

[Ken L]

Absence of Information makes the rumor mill worse, or gives rise to claims of Vapor Ware.

Soon(tm) is frustrating as well given the competition racing ahead with new technology. It's akin to trying to find reasons to keep using an old jeep when your neighbors are driving Teslas.

Overall it's a balance of expectations.

[Ram Tyr]

I agree. Besides, this practice is the norm, not the exception. People expect some sort of notice of planned improvements whether they be roadmaps, dev notes, or alpha videos. In fact, I know on no entertainment software studio that doesn't give their customers some kind of information on upcoming features in advance of a release date. This is far from aberrant behavior.
I do think there is a difference between giving customers info in advance of release date and the situation smiteworks is in. While the current situation with FG does not bother me, I understand those that are frustrated. Smiteworks has created expectations for FGU, as highlighted by the videos discussed upthread, and left it without even an announced beta release date for a long period of time. (I am sure that someone can identify precisely how long.) The situation has created this very predictable backlash.

A slow release of information as you approach the release was the better way... but the length of time that has lapsed here is... long... and we still have no date announced. In my experience the common roadmap of providing notice of upcoming patches/improvements/updates/etc. is, even where announcing without a date certain, is to roll out a mini campaign that builds up. That campaign inevitably includes a release date. Where the announcement is followed by a 'dry spell' this backlash is predictable.

Going forward, Smiteworks might be better served by showcasing and publicizing improvements to the current game given that development is ongoing on the current game as described upthread. Just a suggestion. Get folks focused on what you ARE delivering. You can't put FGU back in the bag, but you can distract folks with shiny stuff along the way. This is how you manage the balance described by Ken L. If we were talking more about the next update because it added something awesome the burden of waiting for FGU would feel less.

Anyway, make sure the FG updates include something to publicize, start releasing info on what IS coming to us with each update... show us the shiny stuff!

All of this, of course, in my humble opinion. I've had FG for a long time... and used it lots... I am hoping it gets better and better and that we expand our user base every day...

[LordEntrails]

Just in case someone doesn't know, what's coming in the next release (3.3.2) is detailed here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?39182-Test-Release-v3-3-2). It's not a flashy format, but it's all there :)

[Bidmaron]

I think I would pay a small fortune just to get rid of 32 bit limitations. Now I know that won't solve sharing bandwidth limitations but not to have to be so careful about module loading and token usage would be huge if nothing else came with the upgrade.

While I know the application itself won't be multi-threaded, I am hopeful that FGU underlying threading (such as transferring data) exists and will be inherited by the new application.

Any other teaser shown items we get are just the proverbial icing on the cake.....

[Frunobulax]

Just a pointer to a related thread, for people following this one: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?39997-Would-you-back-a-Pateron-Kickstarter-for-Smiteworks&p=353633&posted=1#post353633

[Vis]

I understand that it is a platform update and not a complete revamp, and I understand how long software takes. The reason I'm sad about it taking so long isn't minor bugs, it's that I want lots of new stuff that Unity makes possible. I want 3D animated graphics, spell effects, and sound. I want a native Linux version. I want more bells and whistles. I especially want the RMC ruleset improved (CordRPG etc) so it has all the same features as the others, but poor Dakadin is clearly working at max capacity and generously donating his spare time, so I feel guilty complaining about that. Take a look at the Game Master Mode in "Divinity: Original Sin 2" that will be released next week: THAT is what I want. It's clearly do-able.

Take a gander at this - this is what we want: https://youtu.be/X2OCwSqVN8c Here is the full article: https://www.polygon.com/2017/5/9/15589492/divinity-original-sin-2-game-master-mode-gameplay-video-dungeons-and-dragons

I get that Smiteworks didn't get a $2 million Kickstarter, but... maybe it's time to consider one? I bet FG fans would back it muchly!


That is just awesome!

[Callum]

I'd just like to say that I'm perfectly happy with the approach that SmiteWorks has taken. I'm glad they're working on the new Unity version, and I enjoy seeing some of the capabilities that will come with that version. But I'm very glad that they're not abandoning development of the current version - which is what we're all using to play with currently, after all. I also think SmiteWorks have been very clear about what to expect and when, and I don't mind waiting to get a high-quality new version, while playing with a regularly-updated current version - in fact, that's my preferred scenario.

[dulux-oz]

I'd just like to say that I'm perfectly happy with the appraoch that SmiteWorks has taken. I'm glad they're working on the new Unity version, and I enjoy seeing some of the capabilities that will come with that version. But I'm very glad that they're not abandoning development of the current version - which is what we're all using to play with currently, after all. I also think SmiteWorks have been very clear about what to expect and when, and I don't mind waiting to get a high-quality new version, while playing with a regularly-updated current version - in fact, that's my preferred scenario.

I tend to agree with Callum - well said.

[Frunobulax]

I'd just like to say that I'm perfectly happy with the appraoch that SmiteWorks has taken. I'm glad they're working on the new Unity version, and I enjoy seeing some of the capabilities that will come with that version. But I'm very glad that they're not abandoning development of the current version - which is what we're all using to play with currently, after all. I also think SmiteWorks have been very clear about what to expect and when, and I don't mind waiting to get a high-quality new version, while playing with a regularly-updated current version - in fact, that's my preferred scenario.

Well, sure - I agree that SW is doing a fine job, and certainly no one is saying they should abandon anything! I agree it's wise to manage expectations, not over-promise, and not give dates when you don't know if you can keep them. All that is great and I think we all agree that there's no big problem. For me personally, I guess all I'm saying is that with the state of the art the way it is (such as Divinity Original Sin 2), with the resources available (Kickstarter), with the fact that such things definitely take time and we would all rather play in a year or two instead of 4 or 5, it's not unreasonable to wonder about what's going on and what the future might be.

It's not any kind of criticism of Smiteworks to say "We love FG, we like what you're doing, we want it to be even better - would it be useful if we helped fund it so you could do even more?"

[Valatar]

The sad fact is that good 3D modelling and animation is currently prohibitively expensive. It can take days for a pro to create a single model and its animations, multiply that by the hundreds of creatures and generic NPCs for D&D alone and you wind up with breathtaking money on the line, and then multiply that by all of the RPGs FG currently support and it starts getting ludicrous. Then throw in the fan-made stuff; I'm running a Star Wars game and if I want a Stormtrooper I can just snag a picture online, make it a token, and slap it on the map, done. But if everything's done up in 3D, I certainly have no means to create one, and anyone professional trying to do so would get stomped by lawyers.

I don't wanna rain on your parade here, lord knows I definitely want something awesome-looking like that Divinity footage in all of my games. I just think that the infrastructure issues behind building it make it improbably pricey to accomplish for the licensed stuff, and flatly impossible for the unlicensed stuff. We'd have to throw enough cash at Doug for a full-time team of artists to work for months to get even a fraction of that.

[Bidmaron]

I'm with you Valatar. I wouldn't want it even if it were feasible and affordable. RPGs are a game of the mind, and photo-realistic 3d takes away from that experience. And it wouldn't stop there anyway. Next, people would want full-motion, surround sound. In my opinion, the game needs some abstractness to the graphics.

[L. R. Ballard]

I'd just like to say that I'm perfectly happy with the appraoch that SmiteWorks has taken. I'm glad they're working on the new Unity version, and I enjoy seeing some of the capabilities that will come with that version. But I'm very glad that they're not abandoning development of the current version - which is what we're all using to play with currently, after all. I also think SmiteWorks have been very clear about what to expect and when, and I don't mind waiting to get a high-quality new version, while playing with a regularly-updated current version - in fact, that's my preferred scenario.

Agreed. SmiteWorks is taking a wise approach that assures both the contentment of users on the present platform and a high-quality release for the Unity port.

The sad fact is that good 3D modelling and animation is currently prohibitively expensive. It can take days for a pro to create a single model and its animations, multiply that by the hundreds of creatures and generic NPCs for D&D alone and you wind up with breathtaking money on the line. . . .

Yes, 3D modelling and animation are expensive. But here are two possible ways to solve the money problem:

1. Some AAA game makers like Bethesda release modding kits that enable Skyrim owners, for example, to use Bethesda’s assets to create fan-made content. Modders can repurpose existing Bethesda models, but they can also make their own using the Creation Kit and various software programs. Take a look at the Nexus mods website to get an idea of how big the Skyrim mod community is:

https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/

In other words, SmiteWorks doesn’t necessarily need to Kickstart a multimillion-dollar campaign to create 3D models for its VTT. After completing the Unity port, SmiteWorks could invest in producing a creation kit of sorts that allows users to generate fan-made content. In other words, don’t pay for the models: crowdsource them.


But if everything's done up in 3D, I certainly have no means to create one, and anyone professional trying to do so would get stomped by lawyers.

A 3D asset making utility—a creation kit—gives one the means.

Lawyers for WotC likely either will have to modify the DMs Guild agreement to include art assets or write an EULA that specifies how professionals, or fans, create assets. Bethesda, for example, has an EULA for its Creation Kit that governs the use of assets. I am not an attorney, but it looks to me as though WotC will have to clarify its position on who owns art assets made for D&D, for example.


I don't wanna rain on your parade here, lord knows I definitely want something awesome-looking like that Divinity footage in all of my games. I just think that the infrastructure issues behind building it make it improbably pricey to accomplish for the licensed stuff, and flatly impossible for the unlicensed stuff. We'd have to throw enough cash at Doug for a full-time team of artists to work for months to get even a fraction of that.

2. Again, one doesn’t necessarily have to crowdsource a campaign to hire artists. Yes, Divinity Original Sin 2 looks cool. But the makers of Infinity Blade gifted their collection of assets for free to Unreal Engine users:

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/free-infinity-blade-collection-marketplace-release

A sizeable collection of art assets valued at $3 million is already available for commercial use, for free. Now, I grant that the collection of assets is limited to Unreal engine users, but I’ve made my basic point: there’s no need to fund a multimillion dollar art creating campaign. Just acquire the rights to, and use, assets from old games.

In conclusion, one either needs to build a program that can create the assets and then let a talented, crowdsourced pool get to work; or, one must wait for a game maker to release a set of assets for commercial use for free or at a reasonable price.

But the money problem isn’t that big of a problem.

[Full Bleed]

The sad fact is that good 3D modelling and animation is currently prohibitively expensive.
Not really. Animations maybe... but VTT level modeling? There may have been a time when that was true... but not any more.

Tabletop Simulator (a unity program with LUA scripting support like FGU) has proven the old adage, "if you build it, they will come." There are *thousands* (probably 10's of thousands) of player created 3d models available on that platform for free and it's easy to import objects: https://berserk-games.com/knowledgebase/custom-models/

And RPGers don't even appear to be their primary user base.

[lordjeb]

FWIW, from one gamer... if I wanted a 3D RPG with all the graphical bells and whistles, I would be playing WOW or Sword Coast Legends, or whatever else is out there. I really LOVE the fact that FG provides a table-top experience that's not dramatically different than playing at the table with friends. At a RW table, I've never been one to spend my weeks building scenery and 3D models and everything. Just simple graph paper / erasable mat, some books, dice, and a lot of imagination.

[celestian]

Not really. Animations maybe... but VTT level modeling? There may have been a time when that was true... but not any more.

Tabletop Simulator (a unity program with LUA scripting support like FGU) has proven the old adage, "if you build it, they will come." There are *thousands* (probably 10's of thousands) of player created 3d models available on that platform for free and it's easy to import objects: https://berserk-games.com/knowledgebase/custom-models/

And RPGers don't even appear to be their primary user base.

You are correct. They've got some great content out there. I used Tabletop Sim for a while, the only part I didn't like was the lack of database/tools like FG has. If it had both it would be pretty amazing. I'm not expecting 3d tokens but I'd certainly use them if we had the option... at the very least I would use some isometric maps with terrain.

Tabletop Connect I believe was using 3D features so it's not out of the realm of possibility that we could see it sometime down the road I would guess.

[LordEntrails]

I do remember some guy modeled all of the MM for 3D printing and released all those models. I doubt they are rigged for animation, but it's a start. (I lost the bookmark with a computer crash some months back, maybe it was on Shapeways?)

[Full Bleed]

Tabletop Connect I believe was using 3D features so it's not out of the realm of possibility that we could see it sometime down the road I would guess.
It was. And I can't imagine that when Smiteworks acquired it (and Carl) that they'd just relegate it to the dustbin. I know their focus is on making as direct and seamless a conversion from FG to FGU... so a 3D table and tokens may not be in the earliest iterations... but I'd be shocked if the option isn't being baked in. Tabletop Connect's 3D map building and 3D token support was really quite stunning.

[Wookiee420]

one method of tokens that saves a lot of programming and effort is you make your 2d image of like a token or character or whatever and put it on a standee type thing

[Full Bleed]

one method of tokens that saves a lot of programming and effort is you make your 2d image of like a token or character or whatever and put it on a standee type thing
Absolutely. And Tabletop Connect had that method built in as well. Which, again, bodes well for 3D in FGU at some point. ;)

[Xydonus]

FWIW, from one gamer... if I wanted a 3D RPG with all the graphical bells and whistles, I would be playing WOW or Sword Coast Legends, or whatever else is out there. I really LOVE the fact that FG provides a table-top experience that's not dramatically different than playing at the table with friends. At a RW table, I've never been one to spend my weeks building scenery and 3D models and everything. Just simple graph paper / erasable mat, some books, dice, and a lot of imagination.

Agreed. I don't mind the 3D elements, but I don't want to be ever forced to use them. I make a lot of my own custom maps using a map-making program, and tokens; my efforts are going to put in vain if FG:Unity starts giving 3D priority over 2D features. Again, I don't mind the 3D elements, I just don't want them to supplant the 2D mechanics.

Now, as in what dglinder was saying about Divinity Original Sin 2. FG isn't a video game, and I never want it to be. I'd be rightly turned off if FG ever goes down that route. People invest their time in Fantasy Grounds cause it offers a table-top experience, not a video game one. To be fair, no comparison can be made between Original Sin 2 and FG. I've got DOS:2 and its a fantastic video game, but a video game none the less. It's GM mode is great, but it has its own limitations, greater than those you would currently find in FG.

[ddavison]

Agreed. I don't mind the 3D elements, but I don't want to be ever forced to use them. I make a lot of my own custom maps using a map-making program, and tokens; my efforts are going to put in vain if FG:Unity starts giving 3D priority over 2D features. Again, I don't mind the 3D elements, I just don't want them to supplant the 2D mechanics.

Now, as in what dglinder was saying about Divinity Original Sin 2. FG isn't a video game, and I never want it to be. I'd be rightly turned off if FG ever goes down that route. People invest their time in Fantasy Grounds cause it offers a table-top experience, not a video game one. To be fair, no comparison can be made between Original Sin 2 and FG. I've got DOS:2 and its a fantastic video game, but a video game none the less. It's GM mode is great, but it has its own limitations, greater than those you would currently find in FG.

Ease of play and GM'ing will remain our key focus. We will incorporate 3D elements to enhance the experience for people that want that, but the majority of our publishers will continue to provide us all their content in 2D format and that will remain the primary focus.

[Bidmaron]

Thanks. That is very reassuring.

[Nyghtmare]

The sad fact is that good 3D modelling and animation is currently prohibitively expensive. It can take days for a pro to create a single model and its animations, multiply that by the hundreds of creatures and generic NPCs for D&D alone and you wind up with breathtaking money on the line, and then multiply that by all of the RPGs FG currently support and it starts getting ludicrous. Then throw in the fan-made stuff; I'm running a Star Wars game and if I want a Stormtrooper I can just snag a picture online, make it a token, and slap it on the map, done. But if everything's done up in 3D, I certainly have no means to create one, and anyone professional trying to do so would get stomped by lawyers.

I don't wanna rain on your parade here, lord knows I definitely want something awesome-looking like that Divinity footage in all of my games. I just think that the infrastructure issues behind building it make it improbably pricey to accomplish for the licensed stuff, and flatly impossible for the unlicensed stuff. We'd have to throw enough cash at Doug for a full-time team of artists to work for months to get even a fraction of that.
I went down that road with Sword Coast Legends. I invested a lot of money in that, with the promise of being able to run D&D games as a DM and being able to replicate any published module out there in addition to creating original works.

By launch time, that promise had gone out the window.

Left such a sour taste in my mouth, for sure.

[Nyghtmare]

FWIW, from one gamer... if I wanted a 3D RPG with all the graphical bells and whistles, I would be playing WOW or Sword Coast Legends, or whatever else is out there. I really LOVE the fact that FG provides a table-top experience that's not dramatically different than playing at the table with friends. At a RW table, I've never been one to spend my weeks building scenery and 3D models and everything. Just simple graph paper / erasable mat, some books, dice, and a lot of imagination.
I think most of us came to FG for that very reason... a well-developed utility for running tabletop RPGs online.

3D makes it into an MMORPG and not the RPGs that I grew up running/playing with my friends.

[Nyghtmare]

Ease of play and GM'ing will remain our key focus. We will incorporate 3D elements to enhance the experience for people that want that, but the majority of our publishers will continue to provide us all their content in 2D format and that will remain the primary focus.
Which, I am sure, is what the vast majority of your users are looking for. :)

[celestian]

Ease of play and GM'ing will remain our key focus. We will incorporate 3D elements to enhance the experience for people that want that, but the majority of our publishers will continue to provide us all their content in 2D format and that will remain the primary focus.

Sounds great ;) I really loved the tech demo Connect had with the 3d maps. Basically a normal map with walls. Simple, not overloaded but added a lot more immersion (IMO).

Look forward to seeing what you guys do. Keep up the good work.

[Full Bleed]

3D makes it into an MMORPG and not the RPGs that I grew up running/playing with my friends.
Does FG's 3D dice make it more or less like the RPG's you grew up running and playing with your friends?

[RunningHill]

Map and minis - thats how I played then I grew up. With the modelling software thats are available now it shouldn't be so hard to customise a mini to import into FGU.
But line of sight with light radius and dark vision... thats not how we did it. But I will happily change from old school to today :-)

[Frunobulax]

FWIW, from one gamer... if I wanted a 3D RPG with all the graphical bells and whistles, I would be playing WOW or Sword Coast Legends, or whatever else is out there. I really LOVE the fact that FG provides a table-top experience that's not dramatically different than playing at the table with friends.

Clearly you never used miniatures in your tabletop games! ;)

[Frunobulax]

In conclusion, one either needs to build a program that can create the assets and then let a talented, crowdsourced pool get to work; or, one must wait for a game maker to release a set of assets for commercial use for free or at a reasonable price. But the money problem isn’t that big of a problem.

Well said! While it's true that creating original 3D assets form scratch by professional artists can be expensive, that's not the route to go - unless Smiteworks DOES want to try a big-ticket Kickstarter, in which case they could make a limited set of "stock" models and allow players to import their own. But as you say, the cost and difficulty of making them has come way down and there are plenty of open source tools to do it. And the amount of community-made assets would likely be quite large after a little time. After all, look at the zillion Pog/Token sets available in the store created by professional artists. Yes, there may also be royalty-free stuff available already, or perhaps someone would be willing to license their library to Smiteworks for a small per-sale royalty. My suggestion would be to look for a game that had 3D fantasy models which is not being maintained/sold any more and consider purchasing or licensing the IP. Recycle!

I too would love to see some kind of adventure-creation toolkit available for FG, one that wasn't so cumbersome as the current system and was ruleset-agnostic.

[Frunobulax]

Now, as in what dglinder was saying about Divinity Original Sin 2. FG isn't a video game, and I never want it to be. I'd be rightly turned off if FG ever goes down that route. People invest their time in Fantasy Grounds cause it offers a table-top experience, not a video game one.

I was only referring to the "Dungeon master Mode" of Original Sin 2, which actually runs a lot like FG. I didn't mean to suggest that SW turn FG into its own CFRPG video game.

[Frunobulax]

3D makes it into an MMORPG and not the RPGs that I grew up running/playing with my friends.

Really? How?

[Frunobulax]

does fg's 3d dice make it more or less like the rpg's you grew up running and playing with your friends?

lol!!

[Full Bleed]

Map and minis - thats how I played then I grew up. ... But line of sight with light radius and dark vision... thats not how we did it. But I will happily change from old school to today :-)
I know that you are, ultimately, posting in support of those VTT features... but by just mentioning "light radius" and "dark vision" I'm guessing you were aware of those things in your previous table-top games... and that you had situations where you probably had to calculate and pretend what the human in the party could see versus what the elf could see versus what the dwarf could see. So, in a sense, you *were* playing with "line of sight, light radius, and dark vision"... you were just forced to work around meta-gaming and suspension of disbelief ("I know you see the goblin over here, and Jack's character does, too, but your character doesn't... so pretend you don't see him and do what you'd do if you didn't.")

Man... there are some things I do miss about face-to-face games... but asking players to pretend not to see stuff they're looking right at isn't one of them. Un-ringing bells never made a game great. For me, FG can't get these features fast enough.

[Asterionaisien]

I totally agree, especially if someday will be possible to use light radius on obscured overland hexed maps, it would add a real sense of exploration and would be nice for face to face play too :)

[L. R. Ballard]

Well said! While it's true that creating original 3D assets form scratch by professional artists can be expensive, that's not the route to go - unless Smiteworks DOES want to try a big-ticket Kickstarter, in which case they could make a limited set of "stock" models and allow players to import their own.

Thanks! Making "stock" models and textures and meshes is the way I'd launch a big-ticket Kickstarter if I were SmiteWorks.


But as you say, the cost and difficulty of making them has come way down and there are plenty of open source tools to do it. And the amount of community-made assets would likely be quite large after a little time.

Exactly. Again, I refer to the example of Nexus mods. The modded Skyrim game I'm building already has 122 active mods, and I've yet to install SKSE 64 and some mods that rely on that utility. Some of the mods make significant changes to the combat mechanics, enemy artificial intelligence, game mechanics, and so forth. Skyrim came out in 2011, but most of the big mods were out by 2014. Todd Howard and Bethesda gave Skyrim owners an opportunity to create, and modders delivered big.

The same holds with FG. Give modders an opportunity, and the talent will show up.


Yes, there may also be royalty-free stuff available already, or perhaps someone would be willing to license their library to Smiteworks for a small per-sale royalty. My suggestion would be to look for a game that had 3D fantasy models which is not being maintained/sold any more and consider purchasing or licensing the IP. Recycle!

I too would love to see some kind of adventure-creation toolkit available for FG, one that wasn't so cumbersome as the current system and was ruleset-agnostic.

Yup. My only suggestion is that SmiteWorks go for state-of-the-art stuff if and when they make their move. Don't do any big-ticket Kickstarters or make any expensive asset purchases unless or until you've ideally got Skyrim or Witcher 3-level stuff within reach.

If my only option in the meantime were to do little to nothing regarding 3D assets, that's what I'd do. Apart from making a creation toolkit and some baseline 3D assets, I'd wait until I had a moment of vision, until I saw the big opportunity right in front of me.

[ColinBuckler]

I know Unity is a long way off and SmiteWorks will not release any details as such which is understandable.

However, one thing that I think that might be of great use to the community that could be released is some technical specs regarding assets. Such technical specs could include standard format (type/size) of images for use with the new functionality of FG - such as tiles used in the FGU demo. This would allow community artists to create new assets for release as soon as FGU is released with all involved creating to the same specification.

For example images could be png with 100x100 for 1 square as standard sized images. I appreciate that some use 50x50, 75x75, 100x100, 200x200 or even 300x300 - it would be good to have some standards for everyone to work to so that all assets can be interchangable.

The same could be said regarding 3d assets. Type/size... etc.

[Full Bleed]

I appreciate that some use 50x50, 75x75, 100x100, 200x200 or even 300x300 - it would be good to have some standards for everyone to work to so that all assets can be interchangable.

It's a good idea for community artists to work well above and beyond any use-case standard. You can reliably downscale work with much better results than you can upscale them.

I'd suggest producing assets at least 300ppi natively for 2d assets. 2-4x that if you want to be fully prepared for 4k gamers.

[LordEntrails]

It's a good question, i.e. what the recommendations on future art assets should be.

With FGU we will no longer have the RAM issues, but we will always have file size and transfer issues (even if not single threaded like now). So we have two things to consider; file size and RAM usage (as controlled through number of image pixels).

RAM usage:
We certainly won't want to be paying the resource costs for a 1500 pixel size square (5ft sq). But I would think we would want to at least double to 100 and maybe as much as 300 pixels. Now lets think about that.

A 4k screen is 3200x1800 pixels. I guess someone could zoom in so far as to only be seeing one square, but that seems... like a use case not to worry about. 300 pixels/square would give a on screen map of 10x6 squares. That would also allow a standard map to be printed at 300 dpi (a fairly standard printed quality recommendations) or displayed on a horizontal monitor as a game surface at 300ppi (full resolution). Higher than 300 pixel squares is going to provide a very diminishing set of returns. So I'm going to suggest 300x300 pixel squares as the max resolution. Thoughts?

File size:
FGU is not going to change the bandwidth anyone actually gets from their ISP. Hopefully it will be more efficient with file transfer though. So this one is imo much harder to come up with. We can also assume a long term growth in ISP provided bandwidth, but that is going to be localized and erratic as to when it will happen (some people won't see changes for 10+ years).

So, with changes to FG architecture alone, is doubling the file size reasonable? How would 2MB transfers to 6 players be? According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_connection_speeds), global internet speed average is 5.6 Mbps. Converting that to MBps is 3.9MBps. So, a little over 3 seconds to transfer 12 MB of data once you reach your ISP.

Of course, that's not the only limiting factor, your connection to your ISP is. 802.11b is generally the slowest method, and it (fortunately) also sees a actual speed (https://www.lifewire.com/how-fast-is-a-wifi-network-816543) of 5.5 Mbps.

But, I'm no network guru and worry that I'm missing something in this evaluation. Especially because I've experiences longer transfer times on 1MB file to fewer players with current architecture than that and neither of those calculations take into effect applications.

So, right now if I had to suggest a file size limit, I would say 2MB. But hopefully someone with real knowledge on the topic will jump in with sound reasoning.

[ddavison]

Upload speeds are normally significantly lower than download speeds for most ISP customers. It is not uncommon for the upload speed to be 1/10th or less than the download speed.

[LordEntrails]

Upload speeds are normally significantly lower than download speeds for most ISP customers. It is not uncommon for the upload speed to be 1/10th or less than the download speed.
I knew I was missing something! So that would put the theoretical case at about 35 seconds. Long, and probably about the limit of most people's tolerance/acceptance.

Is there something else to be thinking about?

[LordEntrails]

Or perhaps a better question for Doug, John or Carl; can we assume that file transfers in FGU will be done in the background? i.e. FGU will not become unresponsive during large file transfers?

[dulux-oz]

Also, Mbps doesn't translate exactly to MB file sizes, because each packet of information has overhead attached to it in the form of packet headers, etc. The "rule of thumb" we were taught in "network engineering" class was 10Mbps is the (rough) equivalent of 1MBps of actual file transfer (or even worse). :(

[LordEntrails]

Also, Mbps doesn't translate exactly to MB file sizes, because each packet of information has overhead attached to it in the form of packet headers, etc. The "rule of thumb" we were taught in "network engineering" class was 10Mbps is the (rough) equivalent of 1MBps of actual file transfer (or even worse). :(
Google told me 10 Mbps was equal to .7MBps, so that's more conservative than your rule :) And why 5.6Mbps only equalled 3.9MBps.

(Nanny Nanny Boo Boo! Not often I get to be more conservative than Dulux!)

[Andraax]

The biggest indicator of file transfer after actual *upstream* bandwidth (as indicated by Doug) is network latency. High network latency can make the upstream bandwidth seem significantly slower than it actually is (because the error check packets take so long to get back to the sender...)

[Ram Tyr]

In the future residential customers may be fighting off residential data plans from ISPs with data caps... so... controlling / limiting the increase in data for FG does have potential for value. (In a world with caps the software that does the job with the least impact on the cap will have a competitive edge.) By the way, outside of the USA I understand there are plenty of people living with residential data caps.

We might also be looking at a future where more people might be interested in using FG over a mobile network (using the phone as a hotspot)... and where the network could handle the data if FG controls / limits the increase in data required.

Just to be clear, I am not saying that the amount of data should not increase... just pointing out that there are good reasons to consider not just opening up the floodgates to the highest flow that will allow a good user experience in the utopian dream of our future internet connections! :) Now I don't claim to be a networking guru, so perhaps these things would not matter if we are working within the limitations discussed in the above posts, but just in case... something to keep in mind.

[dulux-oz]

Google told me 10 Mbps was equal to .7MBps, so that's more conservative than your rule :) And why 5.6Mbps only equalled 3.9MBps.

(Nanny Nanny Boo Boo! Not often I get to be more conservative than Dulux!)

Depends upon the number and size of the individual files - but yeah, 0.7 works just as well (& and I did say "or worse") - and 5.6:3.9 is 10:7, not 10:0.7. You're out by a factor of 10. :)

(Nanny Nanny Boo Boo! Not often LordE gets his maths wrong! Oh, wait...)

[Frunobulax]

I knew I was missing something! So that would put the theoretical case at about 35 seconds. Long, and probably about the limit of most people's tolerance/acceptance.

Is there something else to be thinking about?

I could be more helpful if I knew more about the internals of FG, when and how it downloads things, what it downloads, how frequently, etc. Most importantly, does it cache files locally? That makes all the difference. If I join a game and I have to wait a long time to download a bunch of big assets, but only the first time, that's one thing - I can live with that. If it has to happen every session, but only at the beginning, that's more annoying but minimally acceptable since I know ahead of time and can plan for it. The worst case scenario is having the whole game slow down intermittently if everyone has to wait constantly while large assets load during the game. So, the best general advice I can give is: cache, cache, cache! Maybe have a setting for cache size, or (in a perfect world) have a user-adjustable, per-adventure adjustable cache size with a reasonable default for people who don't care.

[Frunobulax]

The biggest indicator of file transfer after actual *upstream* bandwidth (as indicated by Doug) is network latency. High network latency can make the upstream bandwidth seem significantly slower than it actually is (because the error check packets take so long to get back to the sender...)

I know this almost certainly won't happen, but just to throw it out there: one solution for this might be, instead of streaming assets peer to peer (GM -> Player) perhaps have some of them (the stuff that comes with a purchased module) be online in a "Smiteworks Cloud" and download to players from there.

I'm sure Smiteworks wants to maintain a cloud or online services like it wants a hole in the head, but there are a lot of way it would be super cool - we could have an automated player matching service, chat rooms, voice servers and hosted game servers (for a small fee), that kind of thing. But really I'm just thinking out loud, I don't expect that to happen.

[Bidmaron]

FG does a crap ton of caching. Say what you want about the single-threadidness of FG but I am astonished at how well the program manages this. There is no where I know of to go read about it though. I have just been around for a dang long time and monitored or been a part of discussions regarding caching.

As for cloud-hosting data that is a whole 'nother level of problem that probably is not Worth the agony to properly and efficiently implement. For local lan-based games like some people play, it wouldn't even make any sense. Also for games where only one person is remote it would actually harm performance. And if you stop to think about it how would FG know whether to cloud share? It would have no way to know that the one remote player is about to be joined by a second unless you had the GM flag at start of session whether he wanted cloud sharing enabled for current game.
There are much more productive uses of FG programming time than trying to cloud share in my opinion....

[Full Bleed]

I hate to use examples from another VTT to discuss this... but there is no way around using actual experience rather than using theoretical experience to discuss something like this.

When running Maptool (64 bit) you don't have all the file size and memory issues that you currently have with FG. When FGU arrives, you won't have those problems either. That alone will be a huge improvement to the user experience. And you will find yourself using assets that conform to your own sensibilities and use-case.

For example, the world map I use in my Maptool Greyhawk campaign is 9500x7000 pixels. It comes in at 66 pixels a hex (my primary limitation is the source file). It's a 9MB jpg file. To put it in perspective: If I size that map down to the current suggested max FG map size (2000x2000) the file size would come it at 1/10th the size and it would be pushing 16 times fewer pixels (i.e. a lot less memory!) I've also removed location icons and city names from the map and turned them into independent images that overlay the map that, when clicked on, bring up notes and information. That means that in addition to the giant base map there are about 150 additional image assets on the map. Of course, the map "looks best" at 100% zoom. The other assets have enough resolution to "look perfect" at up to 150% zoom (since I used higher resolution for them).

Using HD resolution that means that around 34 x 17 hexes are shown at 100% zoom (full screen.) And it alone uses around 1GB of memory.

THAT is the sort of thing you'll be able to do, and will be doing, when FGU is here. So all this hand-wringing about file size and internet speeds will be corner-cases. Most people will have plenty of space, memory, and enough internet speed to handle the significantly larger images they will *want* to use.


Now, I focused on that overland map because it's one of the biggest I currently use and I think it illustrates things pretty clearly. But, in general, I like to use 100-200PPI for my tactical maps and 250-500 dpi images for objects players interact with (like their tokens and other things on the map.) That's 2-4 times what we generally see in FG today.

FGU will not just be an incremental improvement in this area.

[LordEntrails]

...
THAT is the sort of thing you'll be able to do, and will be doing, when FGU is here. So all this hand-wringing about file size and internet speeds will be corner-cases. Most people will have plenty of space, memory, and enough internet speed to handle the significantly larger images they will *want* to use.
....
Able to do and what is recommended for most use cases will never be the same thing. We will be doing those things with FGU. And people push the current suggestion today. But most of them do it knowing they are pushing a technical limit and not a performance limit. With FGU we will probably not have a practical technical limit, but there will always be a performance limit.

There will still be a strong argument for best practices. And best practices are always more for distributed products than personal products. i.e. when someone publishes on the DMsGuild, or purchases a new WotC or other product from the FG Store, what file sizes and resolutions should they expect there?

For instance, if I bought an FGU module should I be ok with it if it takes ten minutes to share the map with all 8 players in my campaign because the map is 15GB in file size and looks awesome if I zoom into a single square/hex? For a one time campaign map sure, for a battle map, for a NPC portrait, for a scene? Don't think so.

You are right that FGU will not be an incremental improvement. It will go from doing what is Possible to what is Practical. Current recommendations are mainly based on what is possible, it will be nice to change that to making recommendations based on what is practical.

[celestian]

For instance, if I bought an FGU module should I be ok with it if it takes ten minutes to share the map with all 8 players in my campaign because the map is 15GB in file size and looks awesome if I zoom into a single square/hex? For a one time campaign map sure, for a battle map, for a NPC portrait, for a scene? Don't think so.


I'm a former Maptools user and I can say that even with 45 meg it never took 10 minutes. 1-2 minutes at most when dealing with a player with a really terrible connection (and one of my players plays via satellite connection). When you're coming from FG where current recommended size is 1meg and 2048x2048 that's a huge improvement.

15GB is a bit ridiculous no matter what tool you're using. Even that 9000x12000 Chult map that was recently released was only 35meg.

[LordEntrails]

I'm a former Maptools user and I can say that even with 45 meg it never took 10 minutes. 1-2 minutes at most when dealing with a player with a really terrible connection (and one of my players plays via satellite connection). When you're coming from FG where current recommended size is 1meg and 2048x2048 that's a huge improvement.

15GB is a bit ridiculous no matter what tool you're using. Even that 9000x12000 Chult map that was recently released was only 35meg.
Don't get me wrong, I am happy huge improvement are coming. Orders of magnitude. But there are still going to be practical limits. Yes 15GB is ridiculously large. 1MB will be ridiculously small. That means their is somewhere in between (or a range) that isn't. Something that will be recommended for most use cases. That's what I think is what should be discussed.

[celestian]

Don't get me wrong, I am happy huge improvement are coming. Orders of magnitude. But there are still going to be practical limits. Yes 15GB is ridiculously large. 1MB will be ridiculously small. That means their is somewhere in between (or a range) that isn't. Something that will be recommended for most use cases. That's what I think is what should be discussed.

Well, without having FGU to test things we can only speculate but if it's like Maptools in this regard then it's purely up to what the players at that table are willing to accept. I think having values now makes sense due to the erratic behavior of the client if you go above a certain size/scale.

Now it could just be a "anything greater than 50 meg is going to take time for clients to download" instead of "1 meg and 2048x2048" or clients will crash.

All of this is just guessing as is since we don't actually have it yet to try. Maybe it will have issues >50 meg because of some other reason...

[Full Bleed]

Able to do and what is recommended for most use cases will never be the same thing.
...
It will go from doing what is Possible to what is Practical. Current recommendations are mainly based on what is possible, it will be nice to change that to making recommendations based on what is practical.

Sure. That's why I've tried to provided some actual numbers from someone who has been in the boat where possible already meets practical. I'd like to think that I have a pretty strong grasp/understanding of memory usage and resolution, etc. (I actually have a 32 bit user in my core Maptool group, so I've had to be pretty precise about how far I could push things... my Greyhawk map, for example, is at about their limit for that platform.) You're not going to find me "accidentally" using a massively oversized token image because it "looks awesome when I have it filling my entire screen". I'm going to open that awesome file in photoshop and change it to something manageable (probably in the 250x250 to 500x500 range)... and while I'm there I'm going to clean up and remove the rough white pixel edges, give them purple eyes, change the dagger on their hip to a hand axe, and put a "Mom" tattoo on their shoulder. ;)

I expect that FGU should be able to safely use a multiple of 2-4 times the current "standards" for a baseline. I could be wrong because there could be some performance issues/improvements I'm not privy too. But, regardless, there will always be extenuating circumstances that will significantly impact performance at the higher ends of the spectrum. FGU can come up with a "Standard" that will work for 90% of most maps. And then someone will come along and want to deploy 400 high resolution tokens on a massive battlemap with various lighting effects and vision blocking elements on a 10 year old laptop, running a 32 bit OS, etc. Then the "standards" will go out the window and their system will implode.

For example, FGU could recommend:

Tactical maps less than 8000x8000.
Tokens at 300dpi.

But whatever their "standards" are, if they want to protect people from themselves then it would be better if they built in some warning messages to help people avoid breaking those standards when large assets are deployed (though they should be modifiable though since people will have different thresholds.) But even that is somewhat arbitrary. It would be even better if it warned when the system was approaching X percent usages of a system's memory or breaking some performance thresholds that will inevitably result in a poor user experience (i.e. slideshow movement, etc.) That way the program will actually be teaching them when they're pushing their systems to the limit and they can dial some things back.

FG might even need to change some core functionality to account for how users are likely to use it moving forward. For example, allowing unlimited maps to be opened might not be the best idea when people start using larger maps... or there may be a compromise where they allow 3 map windows but add map tabs in the windows so you can still have a lot of maps at your fingertips without having them all loaded into memory at once, etc.

Or, thinking further outside the box, maybe they could allow for some dynamic resolution adjustments. Imagine if I know I have crappy internet or a crappy OS, and I want to choose a "low resolution" option. If the server knows it's sending assets that are too large for that client, perhaps it could do some work to dynamically size down the assets before it sends them out?

Low Resolution could be no larger that 50 DPI for maps and tokens.
Medium could have a max of 100 DPI.
High could be up 200 dpi.
Then there could be a custom/unlimited option for people that don't want their hand's held.

All of this, of course, is theoretical.

In the end I guess I'm cautioning against them setting their "standards" artificially low to either provide better performance for the lower 25% of their user base or because they don't want to shift too significantly from the current standards. I wouldn't want it artificially limiting my experience and I'd hate to see asset developers producing assets lower than they should (i.e. 4k VTT use is likely a lot closer than most are considering... well before traditional 4k gaming will be for most users in this space.) So when people say, "Asset developers need a standard!" I wonder, "For what? HD? What about 4k? Asset developers should produce as high as they can. They can always size down to whatever standard Smiteworks puts out so they shouldn't be worried about that. HD may be all the rage this year, but for some--4k is here. And for many, it's just around the corner."

Hopefully, FGU is accounting for that and whatever "standard" they set now doesn't become self-limiting.

[RunningHill]

And remember - not all FG user use it online. Some use it only to enhance their own face-to-face game. They might want 4k res to use on a 4K TV.
Just don't limit things. It's better to have the option to have the sama map in different sizes - very easy to do.

[Tabulazero]

I have a stupid question but I am very excited by the upcoming dynamic lightening feature as I come from Roll20 and I am thinking about switching to Fantasy Grounds for our D&D campaign:

- When will this new version be out ?

[Zacchaeus]

I have a stupid question but I am very excited by the upcoming dynamic lightening feature as I come from Roll20 and I am thinking about switching to Fantasy Grounds for our D&D campaign:

- When will this new version be out ?

Hi Tablazero welcome to FG.

That is not known at this time.

[Trenloe]

"1 meg and 2048x2048" or clients will crash.
To clarify to those reading this thread, as people still seem to get confused with this, the 1MB recommendation for image file size has nothing to do with memory use and client crashes, it is purely to do with transfer speeds to connected players when the image is shared.

[Trenloe]

It's better to have the option to have the sama map in different sizes - very easy to do.
Providing maps at different sizes might seem easy to do. However, as has been mentioned earlier in this thread, that then means that placement of anything on the maps: links, pre-placed tokens, etc. all have to be done individually for each different map size - resulting in multiple links, encounters, etc. and the potential for lots of confusion - what encounter entry (which has token pre-placement) goes with which map, for example. So, providing fully functional multiple maps in different sizes is not as easy as might first be thought...

[LordEntrails]

Providing maps at different sizes might seem easy to do. However, as has been mentioned earlier in this thread, that then means that placement of anything on the maps: links, pre-placed tokens, etc. all have to be done individually for each different map size - resulting in multiple links, encounters, etc. and the potential for lots of confusion - what encounter entry (which has token pre-placement) goes with which map, for example. So, providing fully functional multiple maps in different sizes is not as easy as might first be thought...
Agreed. I will throw out there that I can envision a way to do it (using percentage coordinates instead of pixel coordinates), but that, along with many of the things discussed above, would require significant (or massive) changes to the FG architecture.

Such changes are possible, and maybe SmiteWorks is already planning such things, but as we all should remember, the first goal of FGU is migration to a new engine with backwards compatibility for all existing content/DLC.

[Full Bleed]

To clarify to those reading this thread, as people still seem to get confused with this, the 1MB recommendation for image file size has nothing to do with memory use and client crashes, it is purely to do with transfer speeds to connected players when the image is shared.
Correct. But no matter how many times you mention this, or even explain it in detail, many people will still associate file size with memory usage.

As mentioned above, FGU would be better served to provide some "cautions" for when users are doing things that may compromise their performance. Be that showing some cautions when some possibly oversized files are being transferred (Caution: Large files have the potential to slow down transfer speeds) , or when they're approaching some x% memory use threshold (Caution: Fantasy Grounds is currently using more than 50% of your system memory. These assets are the using the most...), or when it's consuming an inordinate amount of CPU clock cycles for a sustained period of time (Caution: Fantasy Ground's performance has diminished and may compromise your user experience. Here are some suggestions to improve it.) My browser can tell me when a page is bogarting my web-browsing experience, so I don't think these would be an impossible feats in FGU.

If a user uses a few images that are too large it might not affect anything and they might not have to stop their game or go through the trouble of fixing those few images. But if they use 50 that are too large, they might run into trouble... and having some place they can look at some "cautions" to help them get their performance under control would be more useful than telling them to use 200x200dpi images (which they may have no understanding of.)

Right now, FG is more likely to just crash when someone goes overboard... but when the 64bit train arrives the issues will probably shift more toward performance degredation (slow movement updates, choppy animations, delayed responses to actions, etc.) when things really get out of hand.

Which is why I think file size "standards" (even if floated informally) and map size limits aren't the real solutions. I mean, what does limiting your map to 2000x2000 help if you then bring in thirty 500x500 tokens to deploy on it and the program still crashes (or crawls)? I just looked at one of Devin Knight's "high resolution" drider tokens... it's 600x650. Deploying 10 of those is equal to the entire current "max map standard"... and I doubt people do the math before doing it. Nor should they have to if it's not actually going to cause a problem. Playing with high res tokens looks great. And using a few in the current FG or less than an army in FGU shouldn't be a problem... until, of course, it is. ;)

[Fynious]

I know this isn't' going to be popular, but I've been an owner of FG for over 5 years and the one thing I've been waiting for is Dynamic Lighting and as such I've been waiting for 5 years. I'm a little surprised after all of this time we still get a "We don't know when it will come out as an answer." I've seen just a couple of videos showing the lightning, and little to nothing on the over all aspects to FGU and what we should expect for it's release, not just a release date. I could be wrong, I hope I am. If there is a section here with more information on the upcoming release of FGU, I'd love it if someone could point me in the right direction.

Thanks
Fynious

[Full Bleed]

I know this isn't' going to be popular, but I've been an owner of FG for over 5 years and the one thing I've been waiting for is Dynamic Lighting and as such I've been waiting for 5 years. I'm a little surprised after all of this time we still get a "We don't know when it will come out as an answer." I've seen just a couple of videos showing the lightning, and little to nothing on the over all aspects to FGU and what we should expect for it's release, not just a release date. I could be wrong, I hope I am. If there is a section here with more information on the upcoming release of FGU, I'd love it if someone could point me in the right direction.

You're not wrong.

Very little has been promised about upcoming FGU features outside it having all the features of the current FG and backwards compatibility to the current DLC. That's the only "laid in stone" proclamation from the developers. And, no, it's not very sexy.

Some preview videos have shown lighting effects, line of sight, and some nifty environmental effects... but specifics on those features have been pretty non-existent. Probably because they aren't finalized and--back to the default position--they aren't material to the core mission of a direct FG to FGUnity conversion.

So while they have, repeatedly, asked people to buy FG based on what it is now rather than on what it will be... that's a genie that's pretty hard to put back in the bottle.

For example, as you can see by my join date, I've been "around" for a long time. Longer than even my join date indicates. Back then, like many people now, I was looking for the VTT that would serve me best. Back then, past FG's 3d dice, it wasn't the VTT for me. But I've kept up with its advancements over the years and have been impressed. Though I still feel it's missing some essential things... that it's too limited by its current architecture. And those things are looking to be addressed by FGU. So I purchased a FG license *specifically* because they acquired Tabletop Connect (and Carl). Because, you see, I was *also* watching what Carl was doing. And when I saw the two coming together I *finally* decided I'd show some monetary support.

And, actually, in my case it was *completely* unnecessary. While I do play a regular game on FG, it's with a GM that has an Ultimate license who maintains his "all 5e" bundle discount. So there was really no reason for me to buy a FG license... other than to, as I mentioned, show support for the direction that the company was going. However, by the time FGU comes out I will probably have had this license (that I don't use) for too long to actually have any credit applied toward it. But that's ok. I knew what I was doing when I did it. And while they can say, "Don't buy FG for what it will be, buy it for what it is", that's just not how we all operate. I didn't buy FG for the first 10 years because what it was wasn't what it was looking for. But when they started making moves toward making something I think will be, I looked at their track record, found it commendable, and put a little money in their pockets for positive reinforcement.

I know they don't want to make promises they might not be able to keep... but I think one thing is fairly certain: This program will be significantly better once FGU makes landfall. And some of us, despite Smitework's efforts to dissuade us, have decided to get a little invested in that likelihood anyway.

[LordEntrails]

I know this isn't' going to be popular, but I've been an owner of FG for over 5 years and the one thing I've been waiting for is Dynamic Lighting and as such I've been waiting for 5 years. I'm a little surprised after all of this time we still get a "We don't know when it will come out as an answer." I've seen just a couple of videos showing the lightning, and little to nothing on the over all aspects to FGU and what we should expect for it's release, not just a release date. I could be wrong, I hope I am. If there is a section here with more information on the upcoming release of FGU, I'd love it if someone could point me in the right direction.

Thanks
Fynious
I think that SW has stated many times that the initial expectation for FGU should be that most everything will be the same except for networking, 64-bit, a better engine, and backwards compatibility or a one-time update for all existing content.

All the other stuff including dynamic lighting, SW has said should not be expected with the initial release.

That said, they have demo'd dynamic lighting and weather effects and map building and other things as technology demonstrations. Given such, even if those things are not available in the initial release of FGU (which I suspect there is a very good chance they actually will be), I think they would most likely be included within a few months of initial release.

Does that help answer the question on the overall aspects of FGU? Or is it just re-iterating what you already know?

[badula]

I'm using FG as a tool for Classic Offline RPG. What i'm looking for are those things that allow me to quickly setup a decent MAP. DECENT not perfect ther's dundjinni and others for that! I want to be able to quickly Paste some Png images and painting with textures

[Tabulazero]

Would using Gimp answer your needs ?

otherwise, I have backed on kickstarter Mapforge (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/battlegrounds/mapforge-battlemap-creation-software-for-tabletop?ref=user_menu) but it is still in development. I am sure other similar software exists.

[badula]

Nope i want to make them on the fly on the same program i use to track the campaign/encounters that would be useful... There are tons of separate programs for map creations
the best 2 imho:
dundjinni (for interiors)
CC3 (for overland)

[LordEntrails]

Nope i want to make them on the fly on the same program i use to track the campaign/encounters that would be useful... There are tons of separate programs for map creations
the best 2 imho:
dundjinni (for interiors)
CC3 (for overland)
FG drawing capabilities are not adequate for what you want to do. Most of us use the programs you mention or others like it and are ok with that. We don't find it takes much time to add the final image to FG so it is not a big concern.

That said, FG is being reworked into a new engine (Unity) though their is no announced timeline for when that might happen (and SmiteWorks will not release a date until they are close to release). And though mapping and tiling have not been promised to be included, their has been a technology demonstration video of FGUnity showing that capability and even adding weather effects.

Now that I got you excited, don't use FG for what it might be when FGUnity comes out, use it for what it is today :)

[Full Bleed]

I want to be able to quickly Paste some Png images and painting with textures
FGUnity looks to be able to do the former quite well (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7c-v2B3xx4)... but there has been nothing illustrating that it will be able to do the latter.

I'm almost regretting my Mapforge support after seeing the map building tools in FGU.

[Dipset]

Was watching nerdarchy's interview with Doug. Was very vague regarding pricing, saying there was going to be multiple tiers. Does this mean it is planned to be an additional monthly fee?

[LordEntrails]

Was watching nerdarchy's interview with Doug. Was very vague regarding pricing, saying there was going to be multiple tiers. Does this mean it is planned to be an additional monthly fee?
No. The pricing tiers are upgrade costs for those that have bought the one-time license, depending upon how long ago the license was bought. I don't think any mention of changes to the subscription prices has ever been mentioned or inferred.

[damned]

Im pretty sure the subscriptions are planned to stay at the same price.
As Lord Entrails says its likely that if you have had your license for 1 year you will pay a small upgrade fee and scaling up to someone who has had their license say 5 years will pay a much higher upgrade charge.
Nothing official has been announced.

[whiteTiki]

3 years ago there were ideas of this version floating around.
2 years ago I read about this project for the first time.
1 year ago I complained about the project's progress.
Present time; I just wait and have a look around once each 6 months to see if there's something new.
Future time; probably I'll post again somewhere around sept-oct 2018.


The interesting thing about all this is that:

I still believe Fantasy Grounds is the best product out there and specially because we're constantly receiving updates on the actual version.
The overall quality of their product and sub-products (online purchases) are the best out there (I dare anyone that reads this to try and navigate an adventure module with the competition... you'll see).
As probably a lot have done too; I've spent a lot of money on the online store products because I strongly believe Fantasy Grounds is the product with most potential out there too.


So I can only say this:
Hope is worth the wait. The actual product is great and I really don't need anything else to run my campaigns. But the upcoming features will sure make a big difference.

[DrakosDJ]

Im pretty sure the subscriptions are planned to stay at the same price.
As Lord Entrails says its likely that if you have had your license for 1 year you will pay a small upgrade fee and scaling up to someone who has had their license say 5 years will pay a much higher upgrade charge.
Nothing official has been announced.

So, the long standing loyal customer gets the shaft and will have to pay more. Huh, funny way to repay loyalty.

[yeknom]

So, the long standing loyal customer gets the shaft and will have to pay more. Huh, funny way to repay loyalty.

I am sure the folks here are not intending to shaft a long term customer. I do, however, not want to pay more simply because I have been using Fantasy Grounds for a longer time than someone else.

[madman]

Yep, I am in that (have to pay more bracket). But I don't care, a weeks worth of lunch is nothing to spend on a hobby in the grand scheme of things.

Fantasy Grounds! Till the wheels fall off!

Madman..

[dulux-oz]

Considering that I've had the software for 6+ years (since about FGv2.7.2, I think) and have received all the update since then for free, narda, zip, gratis, nothing I don't have an issue with being asked to pay even full price for the new FGU.

Having said that, I'll certainly accept a copy for $0.00 if I'm offered :p

So, anywhere in between and I'm OK with it - loyalty works both ways and my cost-per-game is practically nothing, so yeah, SmiteWorks can have some more money for the new version if they want.

[LordEntrails]

Or, you can think that the customer who paid for a license 5 years ago and has never spent another dime might feel that they should chip in to pay for the development of the new version. And the potential customer who wants to buy it but is worried that FGU will be announced the day after they pay, might be put off if they think they will have to pay for it again a month later.

Also keep in mind, SmiteWorks doesn't require or ask that we pay a monthly or annual software maintenance to fund support and new feature development. Most of the other software I use charges somewhere in the range of a 15% annual maintenance fee if I want access to technical support and/or bug fixes, not to mention new capabilities found in minor versions.

Or there is the other s/w financial model that provides minimal support and enhancements without buying new versions. Think of games, you buy something like COD, do you get updates for 5 years? Nope, once they get a stable build, they go and develope COD 2, which you have to pay full price for. And then a year or two later you have to buy COD 3, then 4, then...

Besides, getting back to FG, Doug has stated several times that they are looking at a pay what you want with suggested amounts. So, if you think you have paid everything you should, you can get away with being cheap. But, if you think that you have gotten the value out of what you have paid and think that FGU is a new value proposition, then you can reward the support and development by paying more than suggested.

[damned]

What do you mean by "funny way to repay loyalty"?

As customers who make a one time purchase of a product we literally have zero value to the company.
Not only a zero value - but we actually cost the company to keep us on.
Ongoing development and support costs to keep us playing when we dont pay them another cent for the license is a terrible business model.
In a niche industry its one that is guaranteed to fail.

You might argue that you also buy DLC. Thats great - at this stage there has been no charge for porting our DLC to the new platform.
You can continue to use the existing platform that you already paid for after FGU comes online but it wont be updated further.

You might argue why you are being charged more than someone else.
But that is a self centric view of the picture.
SmiteWorks want everyone to get great value from their product.
So maybe they picked a number, say 3 years.
If you havent had the product for 3 years they really want you to get even more value from the product than you already did so in addition to the product you paid for (you didnt pay for FGU you paid for FG3, or FG2 or even FG1) they are offering you a discount to buy the next version too.

If SmiteWorks werent selling DLC in my opinion they would probably be struggling massively with one time purchases of an outright license being their primary income stream.

Stop thinking this is a rip off or anything else.
We paid for FG3. We paid for a product we have received already. Any discounts being talked about are ALL ABOUT LOYALTY to the customer and making sure that we all get a great value out of the license.

This is my opinion only and the examples above have been pulled out of my hat and should not be relied upon.
This response is not aimed at any specific person or persons either.

I bought my license in 2011 or thereabouts and its well past time I got charged for a new one.

[damned]

Or, you can think that the customer who paid for a license 5 years ago and has never spent another dime might feel that they should chip in to pay for the development of the new version. And the potential customer who wants to buy it but is worried that FGU will be announced the day after they pay, might be put off if they think they will have to pay for it again a month later.

Also keep in mind, SmiteWorks doesn't require or ask that we pay a monthly or annual software maintenance to fund support and new feature development. Most of the other software I use charges somewhere in the range of a 15% annual maintenance fee if I want access to technical support and/or bug fixes, not to mention new capabilities found in minor versions.

Or there is the other s/w financial model that provides minimal support and enhancements without buying new versions. Think of games, you buy something like COD, do you get updates for 5 years? Nope, once they get a stable build, they go and develope COD 2, which you have to pay full price for. And then a year or two later you have to buy COD 3, then 4, then...

Besides, getting back to FG, Doug has stated several times that they are looking at a pay what you want with suggested amounts. So, if you think you have paid everything you should, you can get away with being cheap. But, if you think that you have gotten the value out of what you have paid and think that FGU is a new value proposition, then you can reward the support and development by paying more than suggested.

Most software I use that is maintained I pay a 20% annual fee for.
Also I think they may be moving away from the PWYW to a more structured scaling but I could be wrong.

[Waldbaer]

Actually I think this whole discussion is interesting but leads nowhere. Because we do not have a clue about the new software yet and secondly there still can happen so much about the paying model. I know about several interviews and the ideas of smiteworks, but eventually there is no official statement.

I suggest we wait before complaining about bad behaviour of the company in front of longtime customers etc. and see what happens. :) And I do not address this to someone here - it is simply my personal approach.

[leozelig]

Maybe they should switch completely to a subscription model after the Unity port. I think it would then be fair to offer a pro-rated credit to your subscription if you purchased the product within the past year. The software is constantly being updated with new features, so it seems like a subscription is the best way to support that ongoing development. People will complain regardless...

Since Roll20 is the main competition, why not mirror their price model? I would like to see a free version of FG that has minimal features, similar to the demo version now, but with the ability to run games. FG would still face resistance because it's not browser-based, runs on the host server, or has a bit of a learning curve. And the reputation of being expensive would probably hang around even with the exact same price model because reputations die hard. But it might be easier to get people to try it out if the base software is free.

[Full Bleed]

So, the long standing loyal customer gets the shaft and will have to pay more. Huh, funny way to repay loyalty.
Simple math.

If you paid $40 4 years ago you've actually only paid $10 a year for each year it has been actively supported and upgraded. That's a pretty good value.

But if you bought it 1 year ago and you paid $40, that's $40 for 1 year of use. Not such a good, comparative, value.

The "long standing" of the former customer has already been rewarded by increasing their return on investment each and every year it has cost them nothing more to keep using the continuously upgraded software.

By tiering in a discount based on what each user's ROI has been, Smiteworks is bending over backwards to treat its customers fairly. It's ridiculous that someone would turn that around and try to make Smiteworks out to be the "bad guy." NO ONE is getting "screwed" or "penalized". They're all being treated remarkably well. Much more fair than most software companies who would just release a new version of their software every year or two and charge flat repurchase or upgrade prices.

[celestian]

Maybe they should switch completely to a subscription model after the Unity port. I think it would then be fair to offer a pro-rated credit to your subscription if you purchased the product within the past year. The software is constantly being updated with new features, so it seems like a subscription is the best way to support that ongoing development. People will complain regardless...

Since Roll20 is the main competition, why not mirror their price model?

Please DO NOT do this. I really hate subscription models. I like to throw down the cash and be done with it. Having both options so both types of customers are happy is much better.

[Dipset]

No. The pricing tiers are upgrade costs for those that have bought the one-time license, depending upon how long ago the license was bought. I don't think any mention of changes to the subscription prices has ever been mentioned or inferred.

Ohhhh ty. I'm on an ultimate subscription, do you know how upgrading to Unity will work for someone like me?

[Andraax]

Ohhhh ty. I'm on an ultimate subscription, do you know how upgrading to Unity will work for someone like me?

From earlier in the thread:


No. The pricing tiers are upgrade costs for those that have bought the one-time license, depending upon how long ago the license was bought. I don't think any mention of changes to the subscription prices has ever been mentioned or inferred.

[Asterionaisien]

I bought Fg exactly because it was an one time purchase. IF it would become sub based for the upgrade, I'll be really annoyed. No thanks.

[Valatar]

I bought Fg exactly because it was an one time purchase. IF it would become sub based for the upgrade, I'll be really annoyed. No thanks.

Ditto, the one-time buy is the exact reason I bought FG rather than subscribed to Roll20. I'm opposed to the whole 'rental software' model on a fundamental level.

[Mitzter]

Just wanted to echo no to subscription models. It was the reason I chose FG over the Roll20. I understand it from a money flow POV but I chose a one time ultimate fee because my dming is so intermittent. I literally go months without playing due to work or take a month prepping etc. I didn't want to go through the hassle of subscribing, cancelling, subscribing again.
I would much rather this idea of the big version upgrade having a charge.

[Klandare]

I also would just want a small upgrade fee. I do not wish to go into a subscription model. I specifically waited until a sale to buy the Ultimate subscription as a one time fee.

[MarianDz]

All this thinking about "Subscription model only" will resulting for me to using only buyed staff (till date of subs. model) with no Unity upgrade.
No new modules, adventures, accessories, because as one time license software I buyed it.
But this decision is complete on developers side and I will accept it, if happened.

On other side I can accept (could afford) invest some money (to max 250$) to development for new Unity upgrade as share on development fees.
For new transition Unity non-subscription one time license.

[leozelig]

Well both options will be available so it’s nothing to worry about. My investment has been around 1.25 USD/month, so I am certainly not complaining. Without knowing the exact costs, it’s hard to say which is the better option for me whenever this thing happens, but I certainly don’t fault them for asking me to pay.

[LordEntrails]

I honestly don't think we have to worry. Doug and John have always been customer focused, extremely so. I truly think they will keep taking care of all of us. No need for angst :)

[gqwebb]

Please DO NOT do this. I really hate subscription models. I like to throw down the cash and be done with it. Having both options so both types of customers are happy is much better.

Never that. That is vaporware! And poof noware. Never please.

[Dipset]

From earlier in the thread:

i understand you are just trying to help but the post you linked referred to pricing tiers for one-time license purchasers. i'm on an ultimate subscription that is monthly.

[Andraax]

i understand you are just trying to help but the post you linked referred to pricing tiers one-time license purchasers. i'm on an ultimate subscription that is monthly.

Perhaps you failed to read (or comprehend) "I don't think any mention of changes to the subscription prices has ever been mentioned or inferred."

[Dipset]

Perhaps you failed to read (or comprehend) "I don't think any mention of changes to the subscription prices has ever been mentioned or inferred."

no i read (and comprehended) that perfectly. changes to the subscription prices regarding unity have never been mentioned. meaning there is no info on what they plan to do about the upgrade for monthly subscribers, including whether they plan to change anything or not.

[LordEntrails]

no i read (and comprehended) that perfectly. changes to the subscription prices regarding unity have never been mentioned. meaning there is no info on what they plan to do about the upgrade for monthly subscribers, including whether they plan to change anything or not.
Which I would generally assume to mean that no changes to the subscription pricing will happen.

For everyone,
BUT, Smiteworks has said that they have not decided or announced what any of the pricing will be, for one-time or subscription, and that they are unlikely to announce pricing until they announce FGU. So, pricing discussions are all speculation, thoughts, and possibilities. Though most of the comments are based on speculation, thoughts and possibilities mentioned by SmiteWorks, there is no reason to think any pricing decisions have yet been made.

As I said before, we really shouldn't worry about any of this. Stating your thoughts and preferences is good, worrying (or complaining) about what may or may not come to be really won't help or do yourself any good. Let your thoughts be known so SW can consider them, but until proven otherwise, assume they will do what they can to take care of us.

[Martin2301]

Does anyone knows when the unity engine gonna be ?

[LordEntrails]

Does anyone knows when the unity engine gonna be ?
It will be out when it is good and ready. What date that may be no one knows.

SmiteWorks has said they will not announce a date until they are in the finalization steps and can be certain that whatever date they set they can make.

This probably means it is more than 3 months out. Possible a year or more, though everyone hopes it is sooner.

[Frunobulax]

Actually I think this whole discussion is interesting but leads nowhere. Because we do not have a clue about the new software yet and secondly there still can happen so much about the paying model. I know about several interviews and the ideas of smiteworks, but eventually there is no official statement. I suggest we wait before complaining about bad behaviour of the company in front of longtime customers etc. and see what happens. :) And I do not address this to someone here - it is simply my personal approach.

I agree with this 100%. People are discussing things that may or may not happen at some indeterminate point in the future. Nothing is known for sure, it;'s all guesswork and conjecture. Discussing it without more data is just foolishness - at least for things like pricing, upgrades, and so on. Let's keep this discussion to thing such as suggested features so that SW knows what direction we'd like them to go in in general. That's all we can do.

[Frunobulax]

Please DO NOT do this. I really hate subscription models. I like to throw down the cash and be done with it. Having both options so both types of customers are happy is much better.

I have to agree here. I HATE subscriptions. I really like the choice between "pay a few bucks every month" and "pay a reasonable price for a permanent license." I vote for keeping the current system just the way it is. This way, people who are only tangentially interested can dip their toes in, people who are seriously into it can just pay a little more at first and be done with it. I tell you one thing for sure, I'm a lot more likely to spend $50, $60, or $75 on a one-time license than I am to pay $5/month for years and years. I appreciate a company who realizes their customers are capable of doing basic math.

[raif11152]

It will be out when it is good and ready. What date that may be no one knows.

SmiteWorks has said they will not announce a date until they are in the finalization steps and can be certain that whatever date they set they can make.

This probably means it is more than 3 months out. Possible a year or more, though everyone hopes it is sooner.

Its been vaporware for well over 4 years. I've pretty much decided its not happening and resigned myself to the current version just never really getting updated to fix some of its shortcomings.

[Zacchaeus]

Pretty much depends on how much you use it I suppose. Currently my Ultimate license has cost me approximately 0.025 cents per hour. Over the same period a subscription would have cost approximately 0.06 cents per hour. Still pretty good value :)

In that time there have been at least 6 major enhancements and numerous smaller ones.

[DrakosDJ]

Or, you can think that the customer who paid for a license 5 years ago and has never spent another dime might feel that they should chip in to pay for the development of the new version. And the potential customer who wants to buy it but is worried that FGU will be announced the day after they pay, might be put off if they think they will have to pay for it again a month later.
Not sure what you mean by "never spent another dime" but I asure you that is not true. I have bought everything they put out for the %e ruleset and the M&M ruleset. As soon as it is released. I assure you I have spent a lot more than a dime.

[LordEntrails]

Not sure what you mean by "never spent another dime" but I asure you that is not true. I have bought everything they put out for the %e ruleset and the M&M ruleset. As soon as it is released. I assure you I have spent a lot more than a dime.
Then you are not a member of the collective "you" in my response. Also, buying additional products are supporting those products, and only in a very indirect manner support the core application.

BUT, I don't mean any of this to be interpreted or thought of in a confrontational manner. It should all only be taken in the manner in which I mean it; to express personal opinions and experiences with the hope that it will broaden everyone's perspective and understanding. Not to devalue anyone's experiences or opinions.

[DrakosDJ]

I bought my license in 2011 or thereabouts and its well past time I got charged for a new one.
I don't object to paying for the upgrade to the software. As a software development professional I know that reasoning behind it. I object to paying more because I am a long standing customer. I have several software packages where updates to the core software are free, the revenue comes form DLC. This is a valid model of revenue. And as I said I don't object to the upgrade cost, just that because I bought the software in 2012 I'm going to be charged more for my long standing patronage.

As with you, this is my opinion and a consumer. I think the SW deserves to be paid for their efforts, but I disagree that the long standing customer might be charged more just because they are a long standing customer. Yes, I got free updates for longer, this was a business decision made by the developers, one-time charge for the base software and additional charges for the DLC. Works for free-to-play MMO's, works for Hero Lab, and has been working for SW, at lease since I have been here.

[DrakosDJ]

Simple math.

If you paid $40 4 years ago you've actually only paid $10 a year for each year it has been actively supported and upgraded. That's a pretty good value.

But if you bought it 1 year ago and you paid $40, that's $40 for 1 year of use. Not such a good, comparative, value.

The "long standing" of the former customer has already been rewarded by increasing their return on investment each and every year it has cost them nothing more to keep using the continuously upgraded software.

By tiering in a discount based on what each user's ROI has been, Smiteworks is bending over backwards to treat its customers fairly. It's ridiculous that someone would turn that around and try to make Smiteworks out to be the "bad guy." NO ONE is getting "screwed" or "penalized". They're all being treated remarkably well. Much more fair than most software companies who would just release a new version of their software every year or two and charge flat repurchase or upgrade prices.

Pardon but I paid $149.95. But that is irrelevant, I have been here buying additional licenses for friends in my gaming group, as well as geting a majority of the group to buy licenses and DLC. I have been buying the DLC all this time helping support the company so that it existed long enough for these new people to find this wonderful software. I feel that loyalty deserves recognition.

[LordEntrails]

I get the sentiment Drakos. It's like when a car company offers an incentive if you trade in a competitor's car. Or when a cell phone company gives a discount if you switch.

But there is also the part about someone who is a perspective buyer today. They may worry that "Hey, if I buy today, then I might have to buy again in a few months." And then they never get the value of someone who bought years ago.

It's a difficult situation for a company to be in.

How does the car or cell phone company get new customers if they can't give new customer a discount? (Maybe they just give a discount to any new car/contract/etc). Though that is similar to this situation, it's not quite the same.

I guess I could go on with ideas for rewarding loyalty, or enticing new customers, or whatever. But every idea I can think of, I can also think of a draw back or two for *g*

[damned]

I don't object to paying for the upgrade to the software. As a software development professional I know that reasoning behind it. I object to paying more because I am a long standing customer.

You are choosing to look at this from that perspective which is your prerogative. As I understand it you and I will be asked to pay the upgrade price. We are not required to pay the upgrade price we can continue to use the software as is. New users may be offered a discount on the upgrade price so that they are not left feeling scammed and they also do not delay their purchase. Perfectly common behaviour for software companies. You and I will not be asked to pay more. We are just being offered the standard price. If we do upgrade then our DLC may be upgraded at no additional cost.

[pindercarl]

You are choosing to look at this from that perspective which is your prerogative. As I understand it you and I will be asked to pay the upgrade price. We are not required to pay the upgrade price we can continue to use the software as is. New users may be offered a discount on the upgrade price so that they are not left feeling scammed and they also do not delay their purchase. Perfectly common behaviour for software companies. You and I will not be asked to pay more. We are just being offered the standard price. If we do upgrade then our DLC may be upgraded at no additional cost.

Back in 2012, I paid $1600 for Adobe CS 6. Two months later, Adobe announced that its products were going subscription only with Adobe CC. As an incentive since I had purchased so recently, Adobe offered the subscription at a hefty discount for a year. I still own a CS 6 license, but I've never been disappointed with the CC subscription. The updates are more frequent and I have access to more software and features that I did with CS. This is meant as a real world example from a major software developer. This isn't meant to suggest that FGU will be going subscription only.

It is worth noting that SmiteWorks has announced no official policy regarding upgrades, though Doug has discussed a sliding scale based on the length of a license, as well as a possible PWYW path. Currently, it's all speculation, as no decision has been made. Anyone who has interacted with Doug and John, or taken advantage of the liberal refund policy, knows that no one values their customers more than SmiteWorks.

Regarding existing DLC, the first rule of FGU is backwards compatibility. The existing products and your current campaigns will work with FGU. It isn't reasonable, or even feasible, to update all of the DLC for FGU.

[poppy_thompson]

No disrespect, but you, good sir, are NOT the usual customer. I certainly hope SW doesn't use your stats as a barometer for future pricing plans.


Pretty much depends on how much you use it I suppose. Currently my Ultimate license has cost me approximately 0.025 cents per hour. Over the same period a subscription would have cost approximately 0.06 cents per hour. Still pretty good value :)

In that time there have been at least 6 major enhancements and numerous smaller ones.

[Nylanfs]

I'm betting that there are more like him than you expect. :-)