Recommending Fantasy Grounds on Steam

[ddavison]

I will add this to the newsletter next week but thought I'd share it here first and see if anyone else has any ideas or feedback prior to including on the newsletter.

Recommending Fantasy Grounds on Steam

Do you have a Steam account and want to help us grow the community? With a few simple steps, you can help.


Activate your license on Steam if you haven't already. All Standard/Ultimate*licenses and active subscriptions purchased before Oct 17 can be activated, even if you bought them from our site and not from Steam. You do this by going to Games > Activate a Product on Steam and then paste in your license key when prompted.
Launch the game directly from Steam to have it record hours played.*
Find the game in your Library, right-click and choose Write a Review. There is an option for if you recommend the game or not and you can set it as a public review or one just for your Friends only on Steam.
If you follow any Curators on Steam, recommend this game to be reviewed by them.


Doing those few steps will help Steam recommend Fantasy Grounds to others and will increase how often we show up in searches and browsing.

[LordEntrails]

Before the steps, you might want to add a sentence or two explaining what you are asking and why. This would basically replace step 1. You are better at this than I am, but something like:

Do you have a Steam account and want to help us grow the community? With a few simple steps, you can help.

[ddavison]

Sounds good. Edited.

[Azaran]

Reviewed :)

[Valatar]

You may want to hold off on trying to get the attention of a lot of Steam reviewers until FGU and some UI updates are rolled out; FG in its current form is a little impenetrable and intimidating to a new user. I worry that you'd snag a lot of 'ugh what is this there's no game 0/10' reviews from new buyers who didn't take the time to work out how to use it.

[JohnD]

You may want to hold off on trying to get the attention of a lot of Steam reviewers until FGU and some UI updates are rolled out; FG in its current form is a little impenetrable and intimidating to a new user. I worry that you'd snag a lot of 'ugh what is this there's no game 0/10' reviews from new buyers who didn't take the time to work out how to use it.

Not sure how Unity would change that; at its core FG will still be the same concept just on a newer backend.

[Valatar]

Not sure how Unity would change that; at its core FG will still be the same concept just on a newer backend.

Same concept and backwards module compatibility on a newer backend doesn't preclude cleaning up the UI. Things like replacing the radial right-click menu with its occasionally-confusing icons with a drop-down menu labeled in English would just on its own make a big difference with a lot of new users and not alter the way the backend works or hamper compatibility with the old modules.

[LordEntrails]

Same concept and backwards module compatibility on a newer backend doesn't preclude cleaning up the UI. Things like replacing the radial right-click menu with its occasionally-confusing icons with a drop-down menu labeled in English would just on its own make a big difference with a lot of new users and not alter the way the backend works or hamper compatibility with the old modules.
Except SW has never stated cleaning up the UI was part of their initial intent for FGU. And, current best practice for user interfaces is to eliminate words and use icons whenever possible. It facilitates users from all languages and not just one.

[ddavison]

We don't presently plan to replace the radial menu with dropdowns as part of the FGU port.

[damned]

Except SW has never stated cleaning up the UI was part of their initial intent for FGU. And, current best practice for user interfaces is to eliminate words and use icons whenever possible. It facilitates users from all languages and not just one.

Using Strings however allows for easy translations...

[Doswelk]

Things like replacing the radial right-click menu with its occasionally-confusing icons with a drop-down menu labelled in English would just on its own make a big difference with a lot of new users and not alter the way the back-end works or hamper compatibility with the old modules.
Okay I accept I have used this product for 12 years and thus I am used to the interface but I had no problem getting used to the program when I started (there were no youtube videos by dulux-oz (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/member.php?21283-dulux-oz) back then!), but the forums were as helpful as they are now!

Changing the interface would annoy all the current users more I suspect that intimidate new users, it would certainly annoy me that a product UI that has been perfectly acceptable for me for the last 12 years suddenly changed and I had to re-learn everything, (please note that I am not averse to change and I suspect and accept one day I may have to re-learn things if/when the UI changes).

Anyhow back to topic, did this a few years back when Steam version first launched...

:)

[Ken L]

I would murder for a drop down context menu

[Bidmaron]

I don’t want it. Part of the charm of FG is that it does not look like your typical butt ugly windows application. If people want something easy th y go to roll20. It is crazy to believe you can have something that manages over a thousand pages of rules and you can learn it in 10 minutes. Just my opinion, of course.

[Klandare]

I don’t want it. Part of the charm of FG is that it does not look like your typical butt ugly windows application. If people want something easy th y go to roll20. It is crazy to believe you can have something that manages over a thousand pages of rules and you can learn it in 10 minutes. Just my opinion, of course.

Options is why it would be good to add. You might like the radial menu setup. Myself, they took some getting use to. But giving people options to make it a drop down context menu would only make it easier to people to change over or buy FG.

I love FG and it is the whole reason I am back into playing D&D. Getting a game together with my friends in person is basically impossible. But us being able to not have to do any traveling and even means can play longer.

[PopinFRESH]

Done. I've been meaning to do a review for FG for a while and haven't got around to it. Got the update email while I was on vacation so I decided to write it up and post it once I got home. Keep up the good work!

PopinFRESH's Review (https://steamcommunity.com/id/popinfresh/recommended/252690/)

P.S. I tried to write more but Steam said too many characters! so I had to trim it back a bit while still articulating my core perspectives