Ikael stepping up as new primary Savage Worlds dev going forward

[ddavison]

If you have followed Savage Worlds on Fantasy Grounds at all over the past years, you've seen a lot of the same names over and over -- each continually pushing Savage Worlds on to greater and greater things. One of those people has often been Ikael. He has working Phantomwhale, Doswelk, Mask_of_Winter and numerous other SW content creators to program in lots and lots of new bells and whistles and other features for the ruleset and extensions. We are going to be transitioning the main responsibility for the ruleset itself over from phantomwhale to Ikael over the next few months. We appreciate the great contributions and stewardship that phantomwhale has shown for the last several years to help us get where we are today and we are simultaneously happy and excited to see where Ikael will help it go in the coming years.

What does a primary ruleset developer's responsibility entail?
Well, it's not an easy job. Savage Worlds itself has nearly 100 products already and probably another 100 or so not yet converted over for play on FG. The primary developer will often work with other community devs to ensure that new products are being built in a way that will remain compatible with the future changes in the core system. They also make sure that new settings use all the latest and greatest features available. Most importantly, they work alongside Moon Wizard to ensure that each of the products remains compatible with changes that go into effect for the core Fantasy Grounds software. Ikael will be working directly on the ruleset code to help bring it closer and closer to CoreRPG and to help drive it forward with other changes to help keep Savage Worlds as one of the top functioning rulesets around.

If you have any questions for us or for Ikael, please feel free to fire them off and we'll do our best to respond.

[Talyn]

Thanks phantomwhale and thank you so very much Ikael for stepping up to the plate!

[Zacchaeus]

Jolly good. Big shout out to phantomwhale and also to Ikael.

[Doswelk]

Indeed, they make me look good!

I just convert PDFs they do the hard stuff!

[Topdecker]

Thank you to both phantomwhale and Ikael, for where we are and where we are going

[Mask_of_winter]

Thanks for everything that you've done Ben!
I see great things happening with SW on FG with Aki at the wheel.

[christophersons]

It is good to know that there is a continuity of implementations of the improvements in this system. Thank you very much for the things that have been done so far and many others will come. I mean, a lot of people I know are playing Savage Worlds on Fantasy Grounds here in my town and they're enjoying it a lot. And mostly, they rely heavily on new implementations and fixes that are being made. Unfortunately I have some difficulties with the English language but as far as possible I am here representing many other people from here in my city who use SW in FG

[phantomwhale]

A long-overdue promotion for Ikael and I dare say a modestly-overdue step aside from me.

Aki has been killing it with new features and extensions for a while; the majority of my work was weaving them in, and given them some new graphics where possible. After some time of this, we started collaborating directly on the ruleset, rather than making him try and build all these great tools as extensions, and slowly but surely each release started seeing more of his code, and less of mine.

So whilst I am sad to wave goodbye to project which was a huge burning passion when I picked it up 6-7 years ago, I'm also really happy as an owner and user of that ruleset to see where we've taken it, and thrilled to keep getting improvements / bugfixes from Aki now. The tooling we get (and keep getting) for the price we pay for this ruleset is insane - I couldn't see myself playing Savage Worlds online without it.

And now. this is where I'd usually warn Ikael of the hidden burden of supporting the ruleset, keeping it in sync with CoreRPG updates from underneath, whilst triaging and occasionally fixing user support requests from above.... But making any such warning would totally undermine and belittle the truth that Aki has been fielding a lot of the support requests in recent times, and has been heavily instrumental with dragging the ruleset onto CoreRPG many moons ago, as well as providing ongoing patches when bugs come up with new versions.

Personally, I don't play nearly as much Savage Worlds as I used to - which was a shame for development, as my group used to beta test out loads of bugs for me ! But as I remove myself from the support side of this ruleset, I'm hoping I'll recharge some of that passion from years back for FG development, and come back into the scene with some fun extensions to do features I'm passionate about, and maybe even craft some new extensions and rulesets. But nothing new commercially for a while - fun hacks is how I started on the FG platform, and I think it's returning to that which will inspire me to start contributing more code again.

Thanks to everyone for the support, patience and understanding you've all shown over the years. I am sure everyone will continue to offer the same to Aki.

Oh, and Aki, feel free to convert the spaces back into tabs in the code now :D

Ben (-PW-)

[Zeus]

phantomwhale and Ikael, legends of the brethren court, keepers of the savage worlds, and all round bloody nice chaps. Kudos my friends.

[dulux-oz]

legends of the brethren court

Makes 'em sound like pirates :)

And is that what the Devs and the Community Devs are now called: The Brethren Court? (Vote: +1 from me)

Seriously, as others have said: Kudos, Ikael and phantomwhale!

[Dr0W]

Incredible news! I can sayt tha Ikael indeed made my most savage worlds wet dreams come true.

Thanks a lot for the good work Phantomwhale!

[Ixion77]

If you have followed Savage Worlds on Fantasy Grounds at all over the past years, you've seen a lot of the same names over and over -- each continually pushing Savage Worlds on to greater and greater things. One of those people has often been Ikael. He has working Phantomwhale, Doswelk, Mask_of_Winter and numerous other SW content creators to program in lots and lots of new bells and whistles and other features for the ruleset and extensions. We are going to be transitioning the main responsibility for the ruleset itself over from phantomwhale to Ikael over the next few months. We appreciate the great contributions and stewardship that phantomwhale has shown for the last several years to help us get where we are today and we are simultaneously happy and excited to see where Ikael will help it go in the coming years.

What does a primary ruleset developer's responsibility entail?
Well, it's not an easy job. Savage Worlds itself has nearly 100 products already and probably another 100 or so not yet converted over for play on FG. The primary developer will often work with other community devs to ensure that new products are being built in a way that will remain compatible with the future changes in the core system. They also make sure that new settings use all the latest and greatest features available. Most importantly, they work alongside Moon Wizard to ensure that each of the products remains compatible with changes that go into effect for the core Fantasy Grounds software. Ikael will be working directly on the ruleset code to help bring it closer and closer to CoreRPG and to help drive it forward with other changes to help keep Savage Worlds as one of the top functioning rulesets around.

If you have any questions for us or for Ikael, please feel free to fire them off and we'll do our best to respond.

Honor & Glory for all this mighty heroes!!

[Ikael]

Thanks for the kind words everyone, especially Phantomwhale! And thank you for great co-operation work we did for several years, I sure learned alot!

This task is definitely challenging (not to mentioned that I have two months old firstborn to take care of), but it's also passion project for me. I hope to bring SavageWorlds ruleset to next level to make it more fast-furious-and-fun for everyone. I have several plans how to achieve this, for instance enhance support for different play styles and improve accessability. Bringing the ruleset more into CoreRPG is also important to improve access to wide variety of community developers extensions and content. Updates and improvements will be made gradually and there is alot of cover so it will take alot of time but fortunately SmiteWorks is providing wonderful environment to make it possible. I am also passioned to help other community developers and SmiteWork's James in their work to ensure high quality products beyond the ruleset; so feel welcome to contact me if you have anything you might feel I could help around.

Like Doug mentioned shortly, the transition will take few months until I can get my hands fully dirty, until then, happy gaming from my end!

[back strides to Sauna]

[g0ntzal]

Absolutely great news!!!

[damned]

Congrats on the bub Ikael.

[Skellan]

Firstly, thank you Phantomwhale for all your previous hard work.

Secondly, I am really excited that Ikael is now on board. He is the man

[Mortar]

Indeed, they make me look good!

As good as PW and Ikael are, they can't do the impossible :p

Congrats guys.

[Doswelk]

As good as PW and Ikael are, they can't do the impossible :p

Congrats guys.

<memo to self>Ensure that Mortar is playing on my FG CON/FG Daze game then kill him for no reason CONSTANTLY!</memo to self> :dead:

:o

<p.s>If I discover Mortar is own my game at Gen Con this year, kill him for real!</p.s>

:p:p:p:p:p

[Trenloe]

<p.s>If I discover Mortar is own my game at Gen Con this year, kill him for real!</p.s>
Oooohhhh, you're going to be at Gen Con? :)

[Mortar]

<memo to self>Ensure that Mortar is playing on my FG CON/FG Daze game then kill him for no reason CONSTANTLY!</memo to self> :dead:

:o

<p.s>If I discover Mortar is own my game at Gen Con this year, kill him for real!</p.s>

:p:p:p:p:p


I am going to sign up for every game of yours just for that reason :ninja:

[Talyn]

Don't believe him, he lies! He swore he'd kill my character -- and I signed up for his game to fulfill my promise to let him -- and what happens? Not only did my character live, she got the killing blow on the BBEG! :p :p :p

[Doswelk]

Oooohhhh, you're going to be at Gen Con? :)

That is the plan, I have booked the flight, now just got to do the rest (including renewing my passport).

If all goes to plan I am going to be running a game that Wiggy wrote for me to run at Cons.

If not I'll just run some Savage Goodness!

:)

[Doswelk]

Don't believe him, he lies! He swore he'd kill my character -- and I signed up for his game to fulfill my promise to let him -- and what happens? Not only did my character live, she got the killing blow on the BBEG! :p :p :p


Actually I never made that threat, you did! HOWEVER now... :dead:

[Coanunn]

Ahem, I'm late to the party (as usual since I spend far too little time in the forums) but congratulations! I have to say the FG team has been rocking it for quite a while and I see no reason this shouldn't just take it to grand new heights.

**trundles off to hopefully not bug Aki so much with stupid questions**