To subscribe to FGC Ultimate or upgrade, that is the question ...

[bracken]

Hi Everyone,

I have a very first world dilemma ...

With the start of lock-down I finally decided to put in some time and start an online campaign for some work colleagues, (we had been running a variety of Free League games in the office before lock-down). I have had a FGC standard license (unused *sigh*) for many, many years but had also backed FGU for an ultimate license. So I started a DnD5e campaign in FGU as that meant my work colleagues had zero costs, thus removing the biggest hurdle to getting everyone started. The first two sessions were superb with everyone enjoying themselves. However, subsequent sessions (4 to be exact) have been plagued with disconnects and also my server session crashing a few times.

I got the opportunity to play in a SWADE one-shot run by Doswelk in FGC. The experience was so much more smooth compared to what FGU seems capable of right now ... hey, its a beta and that should be expected.

So I have decided to transfer my campaign to FGC for now and run it that way. Unfortunately I only have a standard license (steam version) and so need to upgrade to ultimate. My options appear to be:


Upgrade to ultimate in steam for £86.88
Subscribe to FGC Ultimate through SmiteWorks direct for $9.99 pcm

Estimating the USD to GBP conversion rate through paypal I reckon that I can subscribe for about 9 months before the upgrade becomes more cost-effective than the subscription. So anyone want to throw their thoughts into the pot? I know it is my decision but every time I think I have made my mind up I get hit by doubt. Please help!

[Springroll]

I'd go with the subscription, eventually FGU will be stable and out of Beta, and then all new development and all bells and whistles will be focused on that going forward leaving FGC to receive some patches but not new functionality. I have only tested some games out in FGU and I'm exclusively using FGC so I'm fully with your decision to run your game there. So to sum up, go with the subscription, in a few months FGU will leave Beta and you can move your game there. My 5 öre (I'm from Sweden and we don't have cents...;))

[LordEntrails]

Do you believe FGU will be stable in £86.88 / $9.99 (approx 10) months? I do. I think it will be stable long before that so the subscription seems like a good decision to me.

[bracken]

Thanks for the responses. I think that I was leaning more that way myself.

Another question, my standard FGC license is on steam. If I subscribe can I just switch the license key in the steam installed version of the client or am I better off downloading a fresh copy of the client from SmiteWorks? (I don't think I can subscribe under steam can I?)

[LordEntrails]

Yes, the Steam installed version is the same as the website version. Just update your key in settings :)

[Three of Swords]

I'm pessimistic (see my sig) about when Unity will be (mostly) bug free and even I think that Smitheworks will have it that way by the end of the year. So yeah, go the subscription, imo.

[bracken]

Thanks for the replies. I subscribed to FGC ultimate yesterday. I am pleased to say that it only took me about 30 minutes to transfer everything from my existing campaign in FGU to FGC. That included copying over the player characters, the current state of the combat tracker and party sheet and all the custom changes I had made to the module I am running. I also got the current map the players are on updated with the correct positioning of all tokens by simply opening FGC and FGU windows side by side. To be honest I had expected it to take a little longer than that.

The only other obstacle I found was that Houndy's RFIA extension that I have been using in FGU was listed as not supporting FGC (I love that extension!). Indeed it threw an error on loading when I tried it out. Thankfully I was able to find what was going wrong and fix it and it now appears to work with FGC.

So it looks like I am good to go for my groups' next session on Friday.

I am HAPPY :).

[Springroll]

Happy Gaming! :)