Update extension rules on forum

[ThingsCouldGetDicey]

not sure where to post this so ill post this here.

can we make it mandatory for people who want to make and create extensions to post it on dms guild as a link on their forum post with the payment scheme of "pay as you want" if they are not too sure about charging for it. the reason i say this is because it makes it easier as a dm to keep up to date with the updates. recently i have had games where my disadvantage and advantage where out of whack. and this was really affecting my games. i dm almost full time. so it is important to me to stop this from happening.

If users have to post their stuff on dmsguild its would make it so much easier to track updates in the update tab than it is to have thousands of different messages from each individual forum post that may or may not be related to the updates a dm may need.

can this be implemented? it would streamline thirdparty extensions. like i currently do with alot of other paid ones.

secondly to relate this to FGU.

if there could be at a much later date intergration with things like dmsguild so you can have updates streamlined and the potential to shop from within the launcher that would be pretty cool also. big ask i know but ive seen something similar done with my studio one DAW which is an audio software. with its intergration with soundcloud and its own shop for products. just a suggestion.

[LordEntrails]

No.

First, no one here has the right or authority to do such a thing. Second, community devs create extensions (except for paid one) out of their own good will and desire to help the community. Forcing them to do or use something they may not agree with (DMsG has impacts on the IP rights associated with products distributed there) would simple prevent many of them from sharing their creation in the first place. There are other reasons as well, but I don't see the value in listing them.

Can an update system be created for community content to keep it up to date? Absolutely, it was done in the past by one of the community devs, but very few other community devs ever took advantage of it. Perhaps because it made things a bit more time consuming for them to keep up to date.

There has been talk of SmiteWorks making such a system available in the future, but again, I doubt they will force devs to use it, and many may chose to not use it.

In the end it comes down to anyone using extensions needs to be take responsibility for the problems they may create, and the first step when you have a problem with FG is to verify the issue is not caused by an extension.

[ThingsCouldGetDicey]

No.

First, no one here has the right or authority to do such a thing. Second, community devs create extensions (except for paid one) out of their own good will and desire to help the community. Forcing them to do or use something they may not agree with (DMsG has impacts on the IP rights associated with products distributed there) would simple prevent many of them from sharing their creation in the first place. There are other reasons as well, but I don't see the value in listing them.

Can an update system be created for community content to keep it up to date? Absolutely, it was done in the past by one of the community devs, but very few other community devs ever took advantage of it. Perhaps because it made things a bit more time consuming for them to keep up to date.

There has been talk of SmiteWorks making such a system available in the future, but again, I doubt they will force devs to use it, and many may chose to not use it.

In the end it comes down to anyone using extensions needs to be take responsibility for the problems they may create, and the first step when you have a problem with FG is to verify the issue is not caused by an extension.

it would be better if it would setup systematically that any extension made gets put forth to smite works and then updates get streamlined. having to go through manually of 50 + extensions to find out the offending one because i havnt updated it is very very time consuming. im just looking for solutions to make it more easier for the user end. ive had to spend the last 2- 3 hours loading and unloading to find the offending extension because of how long it takes to load into a campaign each time. anything to make that easier is worth investing in.

[Zacchaeus]

You use extensions at your own risk - especially in Unity.

It is up to you to make sure you have the latest versions of these extensions. Make sure you subscribe to the forum threads where the extensions are posted and you'll get an email when there is activity on that thread.

Also it is good practice not to use too many extensions, maybe 3 or 4 is more than enough. Any more than that and you are inviting conflicts and the kind of situation that you find yourself in. However that last piece of advice falls into the category of it's your choice and no-one is forcing that on you. But just be aware of the pitfalls of using many different extensions.

[ThingsCouldGetDicey]

You use extensions at your own risk - especially in Unity.

It is up to you to make sure you have the latest versions of these extensions. Make sure you subscribe to the forum threads where the extensions are posted and you'll get an email when there is activity on that thread.

Also it is good practice not to use too many extensions, maybe 3 or 4 is more than enough. Any more than that and you are inviting conflicts and the kind of situation that you find yourself in. However that last piece of advice falls into the category of it's your choice and no-one is forcing that on you. But just be aware of the pitfalls of using many different extensions.

yeh i know that and so does everyone but that isnt what im talking about or suggesting. id really like it so that theres an easy way to track updates. rather than be flooded with things not nessecary to the updates. or even better to have an update system that users can upload there updates too that is intergrated with FGU. with your disclaimer before people choose to download them.

[Kelrugem]

There has been talk of SmiteWorks making such a system available in the future, but again, I doubt they will force devs to use it, and many may chose to not use it.

I think it was called GMForge (when Doug mentioned it, the name may change of course :D), but it will still take a while until something like this will exist :) But I personally think that rather many developers would use that :) (at least also developers would like to have such a system :D)

DMSguild is indeed not something I would like to use, I think there is no complete free option(?), and I do not want to take money for my things (otherwise I would feel entitled to my stuff, and I want to avoid to figure out how to handle the taxes regarding such things lol :D) (and the license stuff of course)

[ThingsCouldGetDicey]

I think it was called GMForge (when Doug mentioned it, the name may change of course :D), but it will still take a while until something like this will exist :) But I personally think that rather many developers would use that :) (at least also developers would like to have such a system :D)

DMSguild is indeed not something I would like to use, I think there is no complete free option(?), and I do not want to take money for my things (otherwise I would feel entitled to my stuff, and I want to avoid to figure out how to handle the taxes regarding such things lol :D) (and the license stuff of course)

isnt dms guild free tho if you use pay as you want? because you dont have to pay anything on that if you dont want to.

now im not too sure on the i.p side of things but its still available for free for a user. if they so choose.

[Kelrugem]

isnt dms guild free tho if you use pay as you want? because you dont have to pay anything on that if you dont want to.

now im not too sure on the i.p side of things but its still available for free for a user. if they so choose.

"pay what you want" would allow people to pay something, and that is what I personally would like to avoid :) (because when someone pays something then I would feel "stressed"/entitled even when I know that this was just in sense of a gift, but that is just a personal thing :) But the stuff about taxes would hold nevertheless then; a "donation" in that sense is not necessarily a donation with respect to law, so, I certainly would need to report the money from there etc. and I am simply too lazy for that :D)

[Sulimo]

Isn't one of the other problems (if you want to call it that) with DMSGuild is that it is for D&D only? I know they are popular, but they are not the only rulesets that FG supports, so therefore, it would be a non-starter for those other non-D&D rulesets. You would end up with multiple systems managing extensions, and that would quickly turn into a nightmare from a support perspective.

I can understand the reluctance to add this type of feature to FG. Basically what would happen is Smiteworks would become responsible for other people's work (even if clearly stated that they are not responsible). If something like this were to be integrated into the core product, like it or not, people would expect Smiteworks to support anything delivered that way. It does not matter how many times it is stated, they will always be on the hook, because most people cannot clearly separate those things.

[LordEntrails]

yeh i know that and so does everyone but that isnt what im talking about or suggesting. id really like it so that theres an easy way to track updates. rather than be flooded with things not nessecary to the updates. or even better to have an update system that users can upload there updates too that is intergrated with FGU. with your disclaimer before people choose to download them.
This has been built before. It was not used. What benefit to community devs does it provide? Next to nothing.

You are asking folks that generously donate their time to spend more time so that things are easier for you. You want things easy for you that makes it harder for someone else.

From my experience on the forums here, most community devs would simple stop sharing their extensions rather than be forced into anything like this. They would then setup an outside system to distribute their extensions that is easy for them. Perhaps each would have their own website, or Discord or whatever. So instead of having one forum account and one forums to deal with, you would have two dozen different distribution sites. You wouldn't be happy with that, no one would.

Not that it can't be done. Not that it doesn't have value. Simple that it doesn't give enough value to those that you want to force to use it to have them actually use it.

Isn't one of the other problems (if you want to call it that) with DMSGuild is that it is for D&D only? I know they are popular, but they are not the only rulesets that FG supports, so therefore, it would be a non-starter for those other non-D&D rulesets. You would end up with multiple systems managing extensions, and that would quickly turn into a nightmare from a support perspective.
Yes. It's one of the not trivially problems with the suggestion.