Buying this product

[RedRobed]

In relation to the product itself, I found that I'm quite confused. If I buy this product via the website, do I get all the same content that Steam offers? or Does Steam simply offer all the content at potentially lowered prices as opposed to buying it individually on the website? Is there a difference in what you get access to?

Simplified

Does Steam give you something different that the Ultimate Edition does not from the main site and vice verse?

I also apologize if this is not the correct location for the thread. First time using a forum and I will direct it to the proper location with a little help on how that works...hopefully.

[Bidmaron]

For U.S. consumers, it appears to be true (other than incidental cases where steam updates their site before/after SW) that you will get the same price on Steam and SW web site. However, it would appear that non-U.S. purchasers might be able to get advantageous currency rates if bought through Steam.

Now, it is better if you buy from SW because then Steam doesn't take their cut, and the revenue all goes to SW to pay salaries, encourage further development, etc.

Welcome to the forums!

[RedRobed]

I may have worded this poorly. What I meant to ask hopefully a little more clearly on my part.

1. Does any of the content from a Steam Purchase change if I buy it there, aside from potential gouging on Steams behalf...
2. What precisely does the Ultimate Edition give you in terms of content that differs from Steam.
3. If there is a difference in accessible content, what is it?

As I understand it, If I buy this product from FG, that means I must buy the additional content separately.

If I buy this product from Steam, does that mean it's bundled together so I do NOT have to buy it all separately?

I mean yes, the product is substantially more fleshed out than Roll20 and in comparision looks a hell of lot easier to use, but I do not have endless funds in which to spend on my hobby. So I would rather not like to pay with my blood if that's alright...

[Bidmaron]

Answers:
1. The content on Steam and SW are always in sync (subject to very minor update delays, I would think). The content should be identical. By the way, you can synchronize your purchases

Getting ready to land, hopefully someone else will leap in here....

[RedRobed]

So it's all the same then?

One last thing in relation to the product.

If the Product is received via Steam, would it simply have to be reinstalled on a new computer as long as it had access to the content? I'm looking at building a new Tower, as such the question stems from there.

Same question applies to the main site aswell. Would it simply have to be reinstalled on the new computer?

As well as, thank you. This has been very helpful.

[Talyn]

Welcome to FG and the forums!

1) The application and DLC are exactly the same.
2) The Ultimate License (it's a license not an "edition") is a GM feature which allows a GM to host free/demo license players, whereas a Standard license does not. If you're not a GM, the Ultimate license will do nothing for you. No additional DLC or features are part of the Ultimate license, it's purely a way for GMs to get free players in the door and introduce users to the platform, and hopefully they will get their own Standard licenses to support the developers.
3) No difference whatsoever, as per 1). FG isn't truly a "Steam Application" they're simply using Steam as an alternative delivery platform for people who prefer that. Actually, I guess one potential difference might be the recent "Halloween Sale" where that apparently did not make it to Steam from what I heard. Otherwise when something goes on sale (new sales start every Monday and last the whole week) on the FG Store it's also on sale on Steam.

Certain products have "bundles" such as D&D 5E, and I think there is (was?) a Deadlands Reloaded bundle. There's currently a Castles & Crusades bundle as well.

You didn't say which game(s) you're wanting to play but these days making a guess at 5E is a safe assumption. So FG comes with the 5th Edition SRD modules so you can jump right in and play with that content. If you want more, the full Players Handbook (WotC called it the Complete Core Player Pack or something like that here) is available, or each class is also available in its own smaller, more inexpensive package as well. FG also has tools in the interface to let you enter all that data yourself if you'd rather spend the time vs the money.

As for multiple computers, you are issued a license key which corresponds to whichever license you purchase (Standard or Ultimate) and you enter that into the settings and the updater will check your account and download everything you own. I have FG on my main desktop at home and two laptops, one of which I often take with me on my work travels. You can only login with a single license key at a time though. But, say you're a GM and wanted to test the player end of things, you can open a second instance and just connect to "localhost" and you can swap back and forth between the GM Server and Player Client and see how things look, make sure the players see what you want them to see, etc.

[RedRobed]

Thank you, very informative that is.

In regards to games, I'm both exploring and looking mainly at 3.5 Pathfinder, but not opposed to learning or adapting to different systems. Not sure it really matters that much though? Meh, not really a big deal. As this is becoming slightly off topic at this point. I'll cease the misdirection.

[Blahness98]

1. The content should not change. If there are updates to any product, the steam version and that of the store will be updated. There may be delays in that process, but the product should be identical.

2. The Ultimate license grants you the ability to host a game for anyone and unlimited demo clients. The full license allows you to host a game for anyone that has a license or a single demo client. Once a licensed client joins, the demo client is disconnected. The ultimate license also does require an Internet connection if any demo clients are being used, if I recall correctly.

Aside from those differences, the licenses are the same.

3. Between the full and ultimate licenses, there is no difference in the content. If you are running the demo client, there are restrictions. Doug, the owner, put together a nice comparison of the licenses and comparisons to Roll 20 here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/content.php?18-VTT-Comparison-Chart-between-the-different-versions-of-Fantasy-Grounds-vs-Roll20).

[RedRobed]

Much gratitude to those that responded. Was not expecting a reply this fast.

[Bidmaron]

RedRobed the game you are playing matters in that any modules you buy for those are not very portable to other game systems. Also the characters you play with are no more portable using FG than they would be if you were using pen and paper.

Don’t fall into the trap of expecting FG to automagically convert things. While in some cases it can partially or maybe completely handle the conversion, you should assume it is like pen and paper or ask here and someone will chime in and tell you what parts will just work and where you have to roll up your sleeves.

[Talyn]

I play Pathfinder as well. Similar to like I said with 5E, Fantasy Grounds comes with the PFRPG SRD modules so again, you can jump right in and start playing with SRD content. The official license with Paizo is recent (this year) and -- last time I checked at least -- the SRD modules have not yet been updated to feature all the new drag and drop functionality that the official DLC has. It's possible they've been updated but even without that, people played just fine with them for years and even last month when I did Pathfinder Society for FG Con the GMs were still using the SRD modules perfectly fine, as not everyone owns the official DLC yet.

[Griogre]

Nobody else has mentioned it yet so I will. :) There is one difference between buying FG on Steam and here. Steam always has a buy 4 standard licences for the price of 3 bundle. As others have mentioned the only difference between standard and ultimate licenses is who can connect to the host - and this does have implications on the cost to add someone else to the group as a player or GM and whether the group does round robin Game Mastering.

[JohnD]

Sell plasma. FG is worth it. Oh and welcome!

[RedRobed]

I did not expect it as such. The Internet and various sources on the Internet don't just pop into your lap after you rub the lamp. Gotta give it a little work. However, this leads to me to question. Do the modules available for sale come pre-adjusted for the licensed program or do they have to put in manually? Obviously custom material outside those modules would have to be put in, which I have no problem with.

I do however hope that it is accessible from the license itself at least for the most part, so I don't have to put hundreds of hours of manually entering data. This might be a misinterpretation of your statement however. As a Product that is fleshed out, I do not want to fall into the "It's better cause it's shiny" trap and pay for it as a literal clone of Roll20. Hopefully you understand my concern there.

Regardless if that is the case or not, I am however very grateful for the information given. I apologize for my ignorance on the matter and if the questions came out asinine.

[Talyn]

All the official DLC has all the playable data ready to go. Like, the Official Pathfinder Core package has the full core book in Fantasy Grounds reference manual format, plus all the classes, races, feats, spells, equipment, etc. are already there and ready for play. Tables are also ready to go, just click the "roll dice" button and it will generate the correct response, or generate your random treasure, or whatever the table was for.

Matter of fact, here's Doug (SmiteWorks' president) doing a demo of the official Pathfinder Core (https://youtu.be/gD3fpNlYV6M) a few months ago.

Some people have certainly spent hundreds of hours manually entering the data over the years because there was no license with Paizo until this year. PFS GMs still have to manually do their data because there aren't any official PFS adventure DLC in the store yet, for example.

[RedRobed]

Thank you, that answered the question very clearly. Came up as a little bit of a concern, though in truth it doesn't sound unmanageable. If I buy modules related to the License in question(Ultimate). Assuming they are not already preloaded onto it, would I have to integrate them into the files or would the Modules automatically be added onto existing files?

Don't have a problem with either, but for clarification.

[Dershem]

Say you buy the pathfinder Core module and the Kingmaker module 1, when you load fantasy grounds you have the option to open those modules up so you can access everything in fantasy grounds, The Core rules, npcs, monsters, tokens, pictures, maps, etc. Then there will be a sub tab for the Kingmaker Specific information.

[dulux-oz]

Hi RedRobed, and Welcome! to the Community,

Just in relation to your last post (#16): there is no difference between any Modules running on FG with the Ultimate License vs. any Modules running under FG with the Standard License - its ALL the same. The only difference between the Standard License and the Ultimate License is that Players need a Standard License (or better) to connect to a GM runn9ing with a Standard License, but if the GM has an Ultimate License then the Players can use the Demo License to connect (or the Standard, or even the Ultimate) - that's it! There are no other differences, no extra DLC, no nothing.

If you haven't done so already, let me encourage you to take a look at some of the great Tutorial Videos available on the Fantasy Grounds Wiki (and on YouTube). Damn's are good, as are Xorn's, and people seem to like mine as well (mine are also available from the links in my sig, below) - there's a section on the difference Licenses in Video A-2 (I think it was - its been a while :) ).

Start with the ones on the CoreRPG, because the CoreRPG forms the foundation of just about all the RPGs we play with Fantasy Grounds - so by learning how to use FG with the CoreRPG you'll learn about 80% of what you'll need to know to play any RPG with Fantasy Grounds. Once you've gone through the CoreRPG Videos you can then go on to Videos about your chosen RPG.

When you get familiar with the basic Fantasy Grounds product the next step is to check out some of the Extensions (Plug-Ins) for FG, such as the DOE: Sound, DOE: Locations, DOE: Weather and DOE: Organisations Extensions (to name a but a few - and a Shameless™ Self Plug).

And keep on asking questions - we're a pretty friendly lot here, and we love answering questions.

Cheers

[LordEntrails]

I would suggest you look at the FG College (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?40020-Join-Fantasy-Grounds-College-Learn-Fantasy-Grounds-learn-D-amp-D-and-then-play!). Those folks over there are great at walking people through FG and showing you how it works. You can also jump on the Discord Server (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?36377-New-Official-Discord-Server) and see if anyone there would be willing to fire up their server and let you connect to it and spend a few minutes looking things over.

[Willot]

I would suggest you look at the FG College (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?40020-Join-Fantasy-Grounds-College-Learn-Fantasy-Grounds-learn-D-amp-D-and-then-play!). Those folks over there are great at walking people through FG and showing you how it works. You can also jump on the Discord Server (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?36377-New-Official-Discord-Server) and see if anyone there would be willing to fire up their server and let you connect to it and spend a few minutes looking things over.

Yeah FG College is good

[RedRobed]

I don't have too many more questions in relation to this topic, but I am very grateful for the help. ^,,^d

Initially my concerns were with what was available with the different licenses, which even prior to reading I just needed clarification. Price variety in comparison to other sources and what was readily available and what I had to do to increase the viability if there were some minor holes.

Thankfully I can say, this has been hands down the nicest forum I've been to, and the most helpful. Much gratitude for the aid, patience, and quick responses. First time joining a Forum, not the first time reading one so this is a very pleasant surprise.

[Bidmaron]

Glad you had a good experience. We like to think we are a good crowd.

[JohnD]

There are rulesets that aren't as costly as Pathfinder and 5e; Savage Worlds and Castles and Crusades for example are huge value for the base outlay.

[Trenloe]

There are rulesets that aren't as costly as Pathfinder and 5e; Savage Worlds and Castles and Crusades for example are huge value for the base outlay.
Well, considering the Pathfinder and 5E "ruleset" (in pure Fantasy Grounds terminology) is included with the base license, whereas Savage Worlds and C&C are additional purchases, this doesn't really ring true...

You can play Pathfinder and 5E with just the base license - use the provided OGL material. It's only if you want to purchase official commercial content where the costs increase - which is pretty much the same for C&C and Savage Worlds beyond the base rules module.