Player Tokens

[claedawg]

Why are token sets purchased from the Store or the Forge by players not able to be used by the player? Only portraits are able be chosen by players.

[damned]

Its a long ago design decision that hasnt been unpicked.

[claedawg]

:(:cry::confused:

[LordEntrails]

Did you check the Feature Request list? I bet there is already a feature request for it that you could upvote :)

[claedawg]

It is, only 5 votes including mine. There needs to be a warning listed for all player facing items (third party or otherwise) stating that players will not have access to their purchase in the program when in a game run by a GM.

Not sure how many GMs allow players to make characters outside of the campaign they are running (I've not experienced a game where character creation was allowed outside of the GM's campaign).


EDIT: REMOVED portion of comment for accuracy. Apologies for my error.

[Zacchaeus]

Players can access their purchases if they start a campaign and import their character into that campaign. Once the character has been given a token it can then be imported back into the DMs campaign with the selected token. Any portrait can then be chosen once the character is imported into the DM campaign.

[Muagen]

I might be missing something, but how does the INFORM Act apply here? Are you suggesting that the "online sale of stolen, counterfeit, or unsafe merchandise" is occurring when a player can't use their tokens in a GM's game? Or are you shortcut-ting to when the player sends the GM the image so that they can play their purchased token in the GM's game? I don't think it would apply there, either.
Again, I could be totally wrong about that. I'm no big-city law-ologist. And as it stands right now I have no idea why a player would bother paying money for tokens if this situation persists, so a broader market really should be all the impetus SmiteWorks needs to fix it. You don't make more money by limiting the number of people for whom your product is relevant.

[damned]

From what I can see this is not even close to being covered under the INFORM ACT.

[LordEntrails]

The reason this can not be done directly (as Mr. Z pointed out, it can be done, just not directly) is because of an architecture decision that was made almost 2 decades ago by the previous owners of FG.

It's not that the architecture can't be changed, it just that as exhibited by the number of votes on the request, very few people care about this and SmiteWorks feels they can add better customer value adding or enhancing other features.

Software development is all about choices. Very few things "can't be done" but everything that is done is done because something else is not done.

Take a look at the release notes and ask yourself, What would you wish that they did not fix or deploy so that player tokens could work in a more direct manner? That's the type of question SmiteWorks has to deal with every time they decide what to work on. They have to make that decision for all users, not just a handful.

[claedawg]

First off, I apologize for my error regarding the link I had posted.

As for players not asking about it, I've only had 1 or 2 players (out of a I understand what would be a small sample of 2 or 3 dozen) that even know the forums exist or want to take the time to come here, but all of them have made comments about wanting to be able to add their characters' token themselves.

An example of something that SW can drop instead of adding functionality on the player side would be faux 3D. I don't remember people asking for it, but there are a lot of comments against it. There are several requests with hundreds of votes that have not been implemented. It would be nice if SW would comment on those requests as to why they are not being implemented. There's not that many feature requests compared to the number of forum posts (I understand not being able to reply to every forum post, as they number in the 10s of thousands or more).

Another thing that would sway the voting for the feature requests is that I imagine the vast majority of feature requests come from GMs. Most players are not actually invested in FG and are only here because the GM requires it. Players, generally, have very little understanding of FG. If more functionality is added for the player side of the game, they "might" be more interested in actually investing the platform (meaning more money for SW to do their own pet projects, like faux 3d). Although, going by the history of TTRPGs in general, players rarely invest the game. Over the last 30 or so years of running games only about half (I'm being generous here with my estimation) of the players even owned a copy of the players handbook. So the "build it they will come" mentality in my comment here is probably wrong, lol.

I started off in FG as GM and only recently started being a player. I never noticed the issue with token selection until I started being a player, other than hopping on one of Rob2E's streamed games many years ago (seems like a lifetime ago) on Classic. In the early days, I thought it was just the players not being savvy enough to figure out how to add the tokens on the CS. Like with effects, I just did it for them. I do wish players would take a little time to learn at least some basics of adding the effects for their characters. I've only had 1 or 2 players that can do the effects themselves from the start and still come across players who "can't" do the effects themselves even after showing them how multiple times, lol.

Basically, what I'm trying to say in this reply is that the Features Request site is likely not indicative of Player wants. I would be willing to bet the majority (if not all) of the requests are from GMs going by the requests that are there.

[Zacchaeus]

I think you answered your own question. As you say very few players invest and so only those players who are also DMs and have therefore purchased tokens will know that they can't use those tokens whilst joined to a game - they can only allocate them when they create their own campaign; create the character and then import into the DMs game.

Allowing players access to assets is highly problematic given the way that Unity handles assets. Portraits are allowed because they are differently set up and created than are tokens or images.

If you look around the forums you'll find plenty of historical posts looking for FGVTT to have 3d maps and assets. Such posts will often be people wondering why FGVTT is 'so far behind' the shiny Foundry which has lots of 3d stuff but not a lot else. So I think the 3d upgrade is essential for FGVTT to attract new customers. Whilst there may be a lot of posts from people who aren't interested in it we don't know exactly just how much new business it has brought in; and the people who shout the loudest are often those with complaints. Most people who like things don't ever bother saying that in a public forum. Given the number of questions that I see about how to do this or that with the 3d asset building both here and on Discord it seems to me that a lot of people use them and so like them.

I agree that the forums aren't well used like they were in the past (Discord has probably been responsible for much of that); and it's the same people who regularly post. And since it's a microcosm of the user base the opinions tend to be skewed towards that small group. Smiteworks don't just rely on what is said here or on the feature lists alone; they monitor a broad spectrum of sources to garner what both existing and new customers want.

There are several requested features on the feature list which have been completed and some that are currently in progress.

[claedawg]

I don't expect SW to allow DMs to directly share their tokens with players as that would probably be crossing the line on copyrights and whatnot. It would be nice for me to be able to use the tokens I have purchased when I am player though. Since all of the GMs I have played under so far do not allow characters to be made outside of their campaign (I am the same way) it makes it impossible for me to use those tokens for myself as a player. It just makes no sense to allow players to access their portraits folder and not their token folder.

[LordEntrails]

I don't expect SW to allow DMs to directly share their tokens with players as that would probably be crossing the line on copyrights and whatnot. It would be nice for me to be able to use the tokens I have purchased when I am player though. Since all of the GMs I have played under so far do not allow characters to be made outside of their campaign (I am the same way) it makes it impossible for me to use those tokens for myself as a player. It just makes no sense to allow players to access their portraits folder and not their token folder.
We understand. And no one disagrees that it's a strange decision. But it was made more than a decade ago and though it comes up on occasion, there are work arounds and it really doesn't come up that often. I'm sure SmiteWorks is not opposed to making the change, but it may mean they have to review all the contract agreements they have with all the token artists to make sure such a change won't impact any legal agreements. Then they have to make the technical change. And as said, all of this is instead of doing something else.

[claedawg]

I would imagine the technical issue would be as easy as copy pasting the portion of code that allows players to access to their own portraits folder with two or three changes to make allow access to the player's tokens folder.

Legally, should be no different than the legality behind allowing players access to their portraits folder. I'm not talking about allowing the GM to share his/her assets.

The current way to do it seems more "illegal" (for the players and GM) by making the players and GM sharing assets themselves (if they want a token that is not a copy of the portrait). With the change I'm proposing, there is no sharing of assets.

[Zacchaeus]

I think that if it were as simple as copy/pasting some code it would have been done already. So I think we can assume that giving players access to specific assets is not a simple task and would require a great deal of development time.

[damned]

I would imagine the technical issue would be as easy as copy pasting the portion of code that allows players to access to their own portraits folder with two or three changes to make allow access to the player's tokens folder.

Thats exactly how coding works. People imagine things and coders make them happen just like magic.