Release Fantasy Grounds Unity now...

[LordEntrails]

Most find it hard to deal with the established guard here, the new version was promised in 6th months... 2 years ago, this is a fact.

Interesting, I remember comments about 'hoping it' would be released, and 'aiming for', but never a 'promise to' release. But, not sure semantics really matter at all.

What happens when Wizards or Paizo says ok were going to make our own virtual table top, they throw Money at it and produce a VTT that integrates perfectly with ... say DnD Beyond.

Wizards tried to develop their own VTT some years back. After many years and repeatedly failing to deliver, they gave up. Their current business model is to license their content to other platforms, like FG, Roll20 and DDB. Paizo hasn't shown any interest in developing their own VTT either. They have recently licensed PF and PF2 to FG, so if they had any interest in developing their own VTT, I doubt they would have done that.

I know this is the best software I just want it to keep growing as fast as other companies. I'm assuming there will be a 3rd competitor before too long, that will mean less an less are choosing this VTT. I think all good folk are aware of this but how can FG be even better marketed , more sales more traction with the RPG community.

If you look at the numbers published on the number of FG games being played, you will see that FG is growing exceptionally fast (20 or 30% year over year?). We can assume revenue is fairly proportional to that. Then look at the number of employees SmiteWorks has. That's gone from what, 3 people 3 years ago to 6 now? Plus all the contractors that are doing conversion and ruleset work. So yea, if SmiteWorks was growing any faster I would be concerned for the company stability (unlimited growth is usually a bad thing for a company)

Maybe you mean technology growth? We've had what, 2 releases so far this year that keep enhancing capabilities and a third is in public test channel right now so we should have that in a few weeks.

Yes there are other VTT that in the last 3 years have shown a great deal of promise, and many of them have also died out in the same time. Proof of concept and production software are miles apart. Building a new application from scratch and upgrading an existing application to a new platform while maintaining compatibility is a huge difference. Getting 80% to somewhere with a product is easy, getting the last 20% takes 80% of the effort *G*

Will the Unity version cost more all over again? i heard that hinted at. I hope not.

I'm sure it will be. When you own Office 2003 did you get Office 2013 for free? No. When you bought Never Winter Nights, did you get NWN2 for free? Nope. All of that work being done for FGU has to paid someway right? Though their are other business models, paying for new version of software is pretty traditional and accepted.

Please release the new version soon.

I'm sure SmiteWorks would love to release FGU as soon as possible. But, they are not willing to release it before it is stable and meets the expectations of a quality VTT.

Hopefully none of that is deemed negative, defensive, or dismissive. Its intended to be thoughtful and informative. And, its only my opinion(s).

[QuizicalWiz]

Interesting, I remember comments about 'hoping it' would be released, and 'aiming for', but never a 'promise to' release. But, not sure semantics really matter at all.
Wizards tried to develop their own VTT some years back. After many years and repeatedly failing to deliver, they gave up. Their current business model is to license their content to other platforms, like FG, Roll20 and DDB. Paizo .........(truncated) And, its only my opinion(s).

Thanks LordENTRAILS you are a Zealot. I find allot of you guys answer well, questions that are situational I would love the same transparency from the from the higher ups or the ones doing direct work on status of UNITY. I think paying for another ultimate licence was implied as waived by Doug some time ago in a impromptu YouTube conversation with Dave Middleton. I do not expect it honored but my brain holds onto such things.

FG has been super stable and super useful but there has been a curve getting the players to use the software in general, the spell abilities and class features seamlessly. I think the hope is that everything is integrated in a click or a flyout menu.

I still think we need a Expert user Demoing a campaign with the Unity ALPHA/BETA, create interest, choose great ways to show off features.

I think "resting on laurels" of Failed attempts by Wizards, or lack of Interest of other RPG companies, maybe cost efficient but it also could be a hazard. It is an infinitesimally small community developing a VTT for use with all major Table Top RPGs so I guess we will wait.

[LordEntrails]

Thanks LordENTRAILS you are a Zealot. I find allot of you guys answer well, questions that are situational I would love the same transparency from the from the higher ups or the ones doing direct work on status of UNITY. I think paying for another ultimate licence was implied as waived by Doug some time ago in a impromptu YouTube conversation with Dave Middleton. I do not expect it honored but my brain holds onto such things.

Transparency to customers for product development is tough. I would enjoy it too. But I also understand whatever metrics etc that could be shared would be prone to misinterpretation and developing a product, especially a unique product, is prone to change. If I remember Doug mentioning something like they had 15 pages of items and were down to 3. But doing something like that people are going to try and extrapolate that to a time frame. But, such extrapolation really is useless. Because all things are not equal, and often times in product development when you "finish" or resolve one item, you might solve two items, or require ten other items that were already "finished" now have to be re-worked. Plus, new things sometimes have to get added to the list. So, it's tough

Second, look at other companies, how may of them are transparent in their product development? At the moment, I can't think of any. Their are reasons for that

Plus, think of it this way, to put together meaningful and clear "reports", or even to just answer questions if internal metrics/status were shared takes time. I could imagine Doug or John spending 10 hours a week answering questions. That's 10 hours a week not put into working on FGU.

FG has been super stable and super useful but there has been a curve getting the players to use the software in general, the spell abilities and class features seamlessly. I think the hope is that everything is integrated in a click or a flyout menu.

Their are a few threads on the forum about the UI. And you will find no consensus, and lots of opinions. I doubt major UI changes will be coming, even after FGU. But, who knows, maybe (but I'm 99.9% sure no major UI changes will happen with FGU).

I still think we need a Expert user Demoing a campaign with the Unity ALPHA/BETA, create interest, choose great ways to show off features.

Well, none of us will be experts when FGU first comes out. But, I'm sure people like Rob and Mr. Z and FG College and many others will be putting out videos, classes, etc as soon as its available.

I think "resting on laurels" of Failed attempts by Wizards, or lack of Interest of other RPG companies, maybe cost efficient but it also could be a hazard. It is an infinitesimally small community developing a VTT for use with all major Table Top RPGs so I guess we will wait.

I don't see anyone resting do you?

[Moon Wizard]

This is my attempt at adding some transparency, for what it is worth. No dates included.

I want to just say as one of the main developers for all of FG; that there are very good reasons why we keep dates internal. (including reasons such as LE mentions above). I have always stated every time that I have responded to questions about FGU that people should buy Fantasy Grounds for what it does today, not for some possible implementation in the future. We would all like it to be done faster; but we have competing priorities that don't always allow full development on just FGU. To my knowledge, we have never given formal dates for release.

I have seen multiple VTT projects from Wizards, one from Paizo, and at least a dozen more independent VTT projects over the years. They have all failed for underestimating the work needed, as well as the need to approach things incrementally in such a relatively niche market.

One of the things that I've always felt is important to Fantasy Grounds is that we never seem like the product is standing still, just "waiting" for the new shiny thing in some distant future point. It's a path that many software companies have taken to ruin, either due to too long between new developments, competitive pressures, or underestimation of effort. That's why we put out release updates every 3-4 months to keep adding features, as well as growing our RPG catalog to meet demand as best we can. All of those improvements have taken manpower, and required us to spend development time building additional systems other than the main client to keep moving forward. Plus, anything we build now has to work in FGU, because the amount of work to redo 1000+ DLC packages is staggering, not to mention losing lots of community projects.

The Unity project began as a sort of 10% project a few years ago to see how hard it would be to migrate FG to a new platform. It turned out to be extremely complicated especially without stalling all current development. Additionally, we acquired the Wizards of the Coast license around that time as well; which took precedence (for good reason). It stayed a 10% project for me until a couple years ago when we brought Carl on board to help out. Then, with his help, we pretty much have been rewriting the entire client, since the "simple port" to Unity was not going to work. While Carl has remained on the project focusing on image features/handling and as the Unity specialist, I have only been able to spend about 30% of my time helping up until this summer. In addition, all the goodness that gets added to the current version also has to be added to the Unity version by me as well, which increases the work for both projects. (But also makes sure they are compatible with each other.) Currently, I'm at about 50-60% on FGU. Thus, why we have mentioned 1.5 developers on FGU in other posts.

Based on the negativity of posts from people "waiting on FGU" formed from the little bit of information and teasers that Doug has shared so far, I feel like we have good justification to keep dates internal. If it was just me, we wouldn't even have talked about it yet, and we would just surprise everyone when it was almost done and ready for beta testing.

As for any other relevant facts about FGU, such as pricing; all of those things have yet to be determined. While Doug has floated some ideas in a couple different places, the fact remains that the product does not exist to be sold yet, and thus distribution and pricing are not finalized.

One last point. I have been adamant that our position on new features for FGU is that we will simply be moving to a new platform, and that everything will continue to work. That is the highest priority (due to DLC catalog and community needs). It has been a constant job to keep people both internally and externally from throwing every imagined improvement into the FGU "bucket". FGU is not some magical panacea that will revolutionize RPGs; it's an incremental improvement on what we have today. While we hope and plan to surprise people with some of the incremental improvements, it will not be radically different than what you have now.

And again, I will re-iterate that our message has always been to buy what we have today, not what might be built in the future.

Regards,
JPG

[dulux-oz]

Thank you, Moon, for the clear communication on your thoughts, attitudes, and the implementation of what's happening - I appreciate it, as I am sure others do as well.

Being a professional ICT Consultant and one of the Community Devs, I also appreciate everything you've said about incremental improvements, etc. I, for one, believe that SW is on the right track, both as a Gamer, as a Community Dev, and as a fellow ICT Pro. I've seen too many ICT Projects go "belly up" exactly because of the issues you raise.

So, keep up the good work, keep at it, and rest assured that there are those of us out there (your peers) that know that you guys are doing the best, most sensible thing you can.

Cheers

[shadzar]

Is it possible to find out what the current issues are, hurdles to overcome

at current is appears the delay is due to adhering to antiquated design. Rather then rebuilding form the ground up to make a better working, and better looking, and more user friendly interface, they are more interested in making the new system be able to function with EVERYTHING that has been made up until now, including all the bugs and glitches that cause problems the new programming environment should strive to alleviate.

they "claim" FGU is ready, but they have to make sure it works for every existing community extension, and modules, every module inthe store, every module on the DMs Guild, which seems to number in the low thousands?

so rather than making a new system and letting the developers of content update their content for a new version.. they want to make FGU delayed so the content creators don't have to update their own stuff to the new system.

Seemingly FGU was ready months ago, it is just the "backwards compatibility" with the antiquated design and testing every piece of content written for FG on the forums, DMs Guild, and FG/Steam Stores, is what the hold-up is.

so this months time they have been updating the content created by other people or making sure the antiquated methods used to allow that existing content to continue to run, people could have been using FGU, and content developers could have updated their content to a new format already.

this backwards compatibility is also the reason for the lack of any new features, UI updates, or anything else because it would not be compatible with everything made in the last 10 years.

[ddavison]

Sorry, shadzar, your information is incorrect on most accounts.

FGU is not "ready". FGU has several new features. We have not performed rigorous testing of these yet.

Backward compatibility is a key desire for the software and for a large part of our community. It's essential for current customers buying stuff to know that it will work in the new version. Other companies could have chosen a different choice but we stand by this as the absolute best choice for customers. There are other companies and people building new systems from the ground up for VTTs all the time. The vast majority of these fail and a very few make it.

If you think that the way FG works is too antiquated in design for your tastes, then please look around at other options and go there.

[JohnD]

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Most find it hard to deal with the established guard here, the new version was promised in 6th months... 2 years ago, this is a fact. The people working on it a top self folk but it seems they have their hands tied trying to retro-work an older 'acquired' piece of core software they did not write themselves.

What happens when Wizards or Paizo says ok were going to make our own virtual table top, they throw Money at it and produce a VTT that integrates perfectly with ... say DnD Beyond. I know this is the best software I just want it to keep growing as fast as other companies. I'm assuming there will be a 3rd competitor before too long, that will mean less an less are choosing this VTT. I think all good folk are aware of this but how can FG be even better marketed , more sales more traction with the RPG community.

Will the Unity version cost more all over again? i heard that hinted at. I hope not.

Please release the new version soon.

Thank you all for your great efforts

Uh... when was this "in 6 months" promise made? I certainly don't remember anything of the sort.

[lokiare]

at current is appears the delay is due to adhering to antiquated design. Rather then rebuilding form the ground up to make a better working, and better looking, and more user friendly interface, they are more interested in making the new system be able to function with EVERYTHING that has been made up until now, including all the bugs and glitches that cause problems the new programming environment should strive to alleviate.

they "claim" FGU is ready, but they have to make sure it works for every existing community extension, and modules, every module inthe store, every module on the DMs Guild, which seems to number in the low thousands?

so rather than making a new system and letting the developers of content update their content for a new version.. they want to make FGU delayed so the content creators don't have to update their own stuff to the new system.

Seemingly FGU was ready months ago, it is just the "backwards compatibility" with the antiquated design and testing every piece of content written for FG on the forums, DMs Guild, and FG/Steam Stores, is what the hold-up is.

so this months time they have been updating the content created by other people or making sure the antiquated methods used to allow that existing content to continue to run, people could have been using FGU, and content developers could have updated their content to a new format already.

this backwards compatibility is also the reason for the lack of any new features, UI updates, or anything else because it would not be compatible with everything made in the last 10 years.

Please refrain from making claims about groups or companies you are not a part of.

[Moon Wizard]

I have made multiple requests to shadzar via PM to refrain from attacking other user's posts and about making incorrect claims about SmiteWorks policy/actions to which he has no knowledge. After many, many complaints from community members on his aggressive and inaccurate posts, I am blocking shadzar's account for now.

Normally, I would do this behind the scenes; and inform shadzar directly via e-mail to discuss further. However, he has not provided a valid e-mail that he can be reached at. So, this is his notification that his account is blocked until he speaks with us at [email protected], and provides us with reassurance that he will stop his disruptive behavior. I have stated to him before that his actions force us to respond and distract us from working on more constructive tasks.

Regards,
JPG