Release Fantasy Grounds Unity now...

[damned]

apologies for being a bit gnarly.
there is so much more information about why Unity isnt here already other than it isnt here already.
its not like the info is hidden - there is info and answers in this thread too.

i get gnarly about it because people make statements as facts that are misleading or incorrect and they influence others to repeat or build upon those statements.

i cant talk on behalf of smiteworks and only know what has been stated here and on other channels.

some of the important stuff is:

unity has taken longer than initially expected
unity has turned into a much bigger job than initially expected
smiteworks was only 2 staff when the project was started
smiteworks now has two additional devs who are full time focused on this project
smiteworks now has two additional dull time staff who are focused on other parts of the business which in turn helps the devs do what they do
the current product has not sat still for 4 years while unity has been worked on
the current product has had multiple significant upgrades several times a year plus hundreds of small updates
the volume of content has grown massively over that time
the number of commercial rulesets has increased over that time

so why dont they just hire more people?
why didnt they hire more people earlier?
this is not a big triple A gaming software house - this is a small team who are growing in the right direction and directing their resources into the areas they know they need them to
and are growing at a rate that they can sustain
and that growth has been supported by the additional content that has been added

ultimately - whether we like it or not - smiteworks has the better understanding of where and why they spend their resources on the things that they do and they have to be able to balance expensive development costs against maintaining and growing the revenue to pay for those.

maybe unity will get here *too late*
but im willing to bet that it will get here at the right time and will simply be another step upwards for the team
oh and im sure there will be a bunch of sleepless nights when it launches and really gets stress tested and a whole slew of new bugs get found
and it will im sure still be worth the ride - at least from my perspective

have fun - keep gaming

[gogots]

I've been on Fantasy grounds for five or six years. I find that the software is full of flaws: it is difficult to modulate for the different game systems (and even the More core greatly reduces this problem), the management of maps and images support is now very limited and The difficulty to translate the rulesets (I'm French).
But next to that, the game is now the best thing that can be done. The intrerface, which some people find Old school, is very immersive. The possibility of having interactive links on the images, in the text on the NPC sheets, is great for building these campaigns. As for the ruleset supported by FG, they are not commensurate with with what competing software does.
Finally when I see the number of games that come out badly finished, pressed by distributors and players, that end up with a very bad reputation despite their potential (Hello Pathfinder!), I would have only one advice: "When is done!"


Good luck with the end of Unity development, in the meantime please continue to support the current version!


PS: sorry for my english.

[Cluanar]

Or more accurately that the job is quite complex and requires both expertise and time.
There are two full time Unity Devs working on the project.

If 4 yrs isnt enough I'd look to more staff :-)

[Cluanar]

I hope that another tabletop option doesnt catch up in other ways that forces bad options for Smiteworks. At this time , IMO, no one touches what FG can do and I have no plans on going elsewhere. The support from FG and FGC is so overwhelming the game almost plays itself. I researched all the D&D options for 6 months before deciding on FG and it wasn't even close.

I invested heavily in FG and will continue to do so and hope they don't lose a race and we lose a great product.

[lokiare]

Some perspective:

Take a look at your average video game. It takes 2-4 years plus about 30 or more people to push out the game (no seriously look it up). Smiteworks has been working with 1-2 developers focused on Fantasy Grounds Unity.

Keep in mind the features of Fantasy Grounds:

• Windows program that displays graphics.
• Windows program that runs a LUA interpreter
• LUA interpreter that interfaces with the Windows program to coordinate graphics and data through a dedicated API.
• XML interpreter in LUA that loads up instructions to display windows, controls, etc...etc... which LUA then passes to the Windows part of the program.
• A fully networked system that is exposed to the Windows API so that network calls can be done with and through the LUA interpreter.

The features of Fantasy Grounds are much more complex than most AAA games (short of MMOs).

[esmdev]

To be honest, I'm sort of ambivalent about FGU, I'd rather have 64-bit FG. FG generally does enough for me at the moment and with more memory available could likely be coded to do more.

I'll probably update to Unity whenever it rolls around regardless, but that would be more a following the herd reaction than actually needing the new features so far revealed.

[Iotatron]

Hi all, new to the forums here but been following FG for a while. Just though i'd throw in my 2 cents:

I am purposefully not purchasing FG until FGU because i don't want to have to purchase it again, even at significant discount or whatever they are planning (since thats no guarantee). I am staying on roll20 until then. I want to switch because i've seen how awesome FG is but honestly the lack of communication from the devs regarding FGU updates (what is currently being worked on, what's working, what they are still planning, roadmaps, etc) on a regular basis is pretty offputting. I just hear snippets here and there as i lurk through the forums about it and there isn't any concrete info. I want FGU and i'm going to wait (with all my friends who are also waiting for FGU for the same reason), but it's pretty disappointing not to see more details besides "it's in the works" and "it's taking longer than we thought."

Moreover, responding to this:

Some perspective:

Take a look at your average video game. It takes 2-4 years plus about 30 or more people to push out the game (no seriously look it up). Smiteworks has been working with 1-2 developers focused on Fantasy Grounds Unity.

Keep in mind the features of Fantasy Grounds:

• Windows program that displays graphics.
• Windows program that runs a LUA interpreter
• LUA interpreter that interfaces with the Windows program to coordinate graphics and data through a dedicated API.
• XML interpreter in LUA that loads up instructions to display windows, controls, etc...etc... which LUA then passes to the Windows part of the program.
• A fully networked system that is exposed to the Windows API so that network calls can be done with and through the LUA interpreter.

The features of Fantasy Grounds are much more complex than most AAA games (short of MMOs).

These feeatures honeslty are NOT more complex than most AAA games. As a software developer myself i can tell you that having a couple interpreters that pass data around and displaying graphics are really not that complex (especially when the interpreters are probably not written by the devs themselves since there are so many free LUA and XML interpretters that can be packaged into the system. As for networking, that may be the most complex thing about this program, but most AAA games have networking involved (hell even a ton of indie games have it), especially since engines (such as unity) can handle a lot of the networking headaches these days it makes it a lot easier.
I don't know why you are saying that these features are extraordinarily complex, it's simply not true.

[Kelrugem]

I am purposefully not purchasing FG until FGU because i don't want to have to purchase it again, even at significant discount or whatever they are planning (since thats no guarantee). I am staying on roll20 until then. I want to switch because i've seen how awesome FG is but honestly the radio silence from the devs regarding FGU updates on a regular basis is pretty offputting. I just hear snippets here and there as i lurk through the forums about it and there isn't any concrete info. I want FGU and i'm going to wait (with all my friends who are also waiting for FGU for the same reason), but it's pretty disappointing not to see more details besides "it's in the works."

Hi

You may not have seen it, but in post #74 MoonWizard explained why they do not want to throw in too much information about FGU (and he talked also about other things there) It is very understandable

Best,

Kelrugem

[Iotatron]

Hi

You may not have seen it, but in post #74 MoonWizard explained why they do not want to throw in too much information about FGU (and he talked also about other things there) It is very understandable

Best,

Kelrugem

Just read it, thanks for direciing me.

I understand the devs reasoning but i'll be totally honest when i say that I think the news and work around FGU is being handled poorly. Not to mention that if they focused more heavily on switching to FGU then they wouldn't have to split their focus as much. Unity has become extremely powerful as a game engine and allows for a ton of extensibility. If they just focused on making the existing modules work on FGU and made the switch "cold-turkey" then they wouldnt have to double up all their efforts on feature support. This is why Microsoft gave away copies of windows 10 to every 7 and 8 users, so they could focus on one system and drop support for older ones. It makes sense, and doubley-so with such a small team.

[esmdev]

Hi all, new to the forums here but been following FG for a while. Just though i'd throw in my 2 cents:

I am purposefully not purchasing FG until FGU because i don't want to have to purchase it again, even at significant discount or whatever they are planning (since thats no guarantee). I am staying on roll20 until then. I want to switch because i've seen how awesome FG is but honestly the radio silence from the devs regarding FGU updates on a regular basis is pretty offputting. I just hear snippets here and there as i lurk through the forums about it and there isn't any concrete info. I want FGU and i'm going to wait (with all my friends who are also waiting for FGU for the same reason), but it's pretty disappointing not to see more details besides "it's in the works."

My personal thinking is why wait for FGU when it could be years before it comes out. FG is current available, consistently updated and extremely versatile. We already know that FGU will use the same UI with some extra features, so it might not even be important to upgrade for awhile after it actually comes out. I'd wait for awhile anyways just to let them sort out bugs and such.

These feeatures honeslty are NOT more complex than most AAA games. As a software developer myself i can tell you that having a couple interpreters that pass data around and displaying graphics are really not that complex (especially when the interpreters are probably not written by the devs themselves since there are so many free LUA and XML interpretters that can be packaged into the system. As for networking, that may be the most complex thing about this program, but most AAA games have networking involved (hell even a ton of indie games have it), especially since engines (such as unity) can handle a lot of the networking headaches these days it makes it a lot easier.
I don't know why you are saying that these features are extraordinarily complex, it's simply not true.

I'm not sure what your level of experience as a software developer is, but my experience is that after a decade of consistent development and upgrading software gets pretty complex. One thing to remember about Fantasy Grounds is that it has passed hands from one company to another, and from developer to developer going all the way back to 2004 (development probably starting before that). Different developers with different writing styles (and level of commenting) can significantly impact the time it takes to make changes. Translating those changes while keeping the same functionality can be quite a lot of work. I'm not sure if you've ever done a major migration from language to language and platform to platform (as in COBOL to C++ and Mainframe to Windows) but it isn't a picnic.

It is mostly speculation but I assume that FG is written in C or C++ at is core. For Unity you would likely want to (not need to, but want to) migrate the code to C#. While Unity will handle a lot of the graphical work it still needs to be setup and organized to handle the specific functionality that FG already has. You (or I) don't know that FG uses an off the shelf LUA or XML interpreter, both could be custom.

Short of actually seeing the source code it would be difficult to compare it to an actual AAA game, but also the question you'd need to ask is what sort of AAA game are you talking about? They already excluded MMO, and also didn't indicate a timeframe. In it's era, Zork was an AAA game. If you take out the real-time graphical and replace it with turn-based token it is probably at least as sophisticated and versatile than some of the older MMOs, especially the ones initially written in 2004. One comparison I'd make is Neverwinter Nights (specifically 2002 Bioware) the DM capabilities in this game are quite a bit more robust than what a DM could do in NWN. You can build new powers, write new races, classes, backgrounds, items, spells, etc. Of those abilities within the actual toolset you could only add new items in NWN. The effects ability in the NWN toolset is quite limited compared to what is possible in FG. The point is if you compare a AAA game from about the same timeframe (that was in development for a lengthy time) FG actually stacks up quite well.

Anyways it's easy to say without knowing the actual situation that something shouldn't be so hard, but sometimes it is much harder in reality than it appears from the outside looking in.