Important Notice: New Product Support ending June 24, 2021 - Fantasy Grounds Classic

[Mytherus]

This saddens me greatly... Being a player in both systems (FGC and FGU), I greatly love the ease of usage in FGC compared to the more buggy FGU. FGU breaks, it gets fixed, it breaks again... FGC continues onward and has a much smaller resource usage (i.e. players don't have to reboot in the middle of a game bc their system just started smoking)... I would appreciate it if Smiteworks would consider two stores, one for each system.

If your FGU breaks, as you say, regularly..it might the ruleset you use perhaos mods or exts. I would tell it like it is if my fgu experience was as you say but full honesty fgu has been as solid for my games as fgc was and this is for the last few months now.

I've no worries that fgc support is ending, if that means more time devoted to fgu support, features and products all the better.

Edit...going back and reading other feedback ..yes my fgu takes a little to load initially but i have a ton of tokens anout 3 extensions and 2 3rd party mods.it clocks in at 2 "real" minutes . When its loaded though my session is good.

The preload time doesn't impact if ince its loaded it works fine. If it was slow DURING the session then I'd complain. But i load fgu 30 mins before the session starts and i go have dinner or something therefore it doesn't frustrate me since i dont sit and watch it load 90% of the time.

[ProfDogg]

If your FGU breaks, as you say, regularly..it might the ruleset you use perhaos mods or exts. I would tell it like it is if my fgu experience was as you say but full honesty fgu has been as solid for my games as fgc was and this is for the last few months now.

I've no worries that fgc support is ending, if that means more time devoted to fgu support, features and products all the better.

Edit...going back and reading other feedback ..yes my fgu takes a little to load initially but i have a ton of tokens anout 3 extensions and 2 3rd party mods.it clocks in at 2 "real" minutes . When its loaded though my session is good.

The preload time doesn't impact if ince its loaded it works fine. If it was slow DURING the session then I'd complain. But i load fgu 30 mins before the session starts and i go have dinner or something therefore it doesn't frustrate me since i dont sit and watch it load 90% of the time.

I don't use mods or extensions. It's about as Vanilla as it gets...

[ProfDogg]

SmiteWorks should consider having separate stores for FGG and FGU products. This would allow the consumers to choose which options they like. And if a particular ruleset developer doesn't want to do one or the other, so be it - that product is only good for one or the other. But from a profit standpoint, it also allows those of who do use both versions to potentially purchase double the product.

I base my choice of system for my games around my players' capabilities. Some are capable of handling FGU, some aren't. There are some days my FGU just freezes and I'm stuck till the resource need lessens. Generally the only players I have in my various campaigns that are those who can't use FGC are Mac users. FGC seems otherwise much more accessible for my players who can't afford better systems or have the knowledge to work around tech issues. A few of my players have various disabilities and FGC seems to not be as big as issue for their needs. I can't tell you why in particular because I've never asked but I do suspect it has to do with either lack of funding and/or technical knowledge.

Another option is to continue allowing locations like DrivethruRPG to market the FGC mods. I'm certain individual developers who prefer FGC would be happy to provide content that way.

[Jiminimonka]

SmiteWorks should consider having separate stores for FGG and FGU products. This would allow the consumers to choose which options they like. And if a particular ruleset developer doesn't want to do one or the other, so be it - that product is only good for one or the other. But from a profit standpoint, it also allows those of who do use both versions to potentially purchase double the product.

I base my choice of system for my games around my players' capabilities. Some are capable of handling FGU, some aren't. There are some days my FGU just freezes and I'm stuck till the resource need lessens. Generally the only players I have in my various campaigns that are those who can't use FGC are Mac users. FGC seems otherwise much more accessible for my players who can't afford better systems or have the knowledge to work around tech issues. A few of my players have various disabilities and FGC seems to not be as big as issue for their needs. I can't tell you why in particular because I've never asked but I do suspect it has to do with either lack of funding and/or technical knowledge.

Another option is to continue allowing locations like DrivethruRPG to market the FGC mods. I'm certain individual developers who prefer FGC would be happy to provide content that way.

Technically they already have 2 stores, and its a big resource hog. The entire point of Fantasy Grounds Unity was to enable the software to evolve away from the ancient code base of Classic, so the software could move onto a whole new level of software - the fact the back catalogue has been maintained so that all our purchases still work is already a big resource hog. This has been on the cards since FGU left early access.

Allowing rulesets and mods to be sold on DriveThruRPG would be another set of copyright loops to jump thru for devs and Smiteworks. Again the point of FGC being retired is to allow the small team of devs and community devs to have less work going forward, and improve features.

[Jiminimonka]

Oh and asking people to purchase the same thing twice... that was why the back catalogue is forward compatible with Unity. People complain about having to buy the 5e PHB when they have a physical copy already, you expect Smiteworks to ask them to buy it twice for the old and new version of FG?

[ProfDogg]

Allowing rulesets and mods to be sold on DriveThruRPG would be another set of copyright loops to jump thru for devs and Smiteworks. Again the point of FGC being retired is to allow the small team of devs and community devs to have less work going forward, and improve features.

I don't think there's any copyright issues to be concerned about because Drivethru already has some FG mods being sold (as does Steam). Just open up a bigger marketplace by allowing another company (Drivethru) to handle the FGC mods.

[ProfDogg]

Oh and asking people to purchase the same thing twice... that was why the back catalogue is forward compatible with Unity. People complain about having to buy the 5e PHB when they have a physical copy already, you expect Smiteworks to ask them to buy it twice for the old and new version of FG?

Let the consumers choose. Some people do, some people don't.

[LordEntrails]

I don't think there's any copyright issues to be concerned about because Drivethru already has some FG mods being sold (as does Steam). Just open up a bigger marketplace by allowing another company (Drivethru) to handle the FGC mods.

Actually they are mostly sold via DMsGuild which is a subsidiary of DriveThru. I believe their are one or two companies that have licenses to sell FG modules on the DriveThru directly, but those require specific license agreements. If not being sold via the DMsGuild agreement or a direct license agreement with SmiteWorks, then they are being sold in violation of copyright notices and should be brought to the attention of FG support directly.

As for consumers choosing, they have already done so by the vast majority (as defined by SmiteWorks) switching to FGU from FGC. SmiteWorks has apparently decided that it is no longer financially smart to continue the dual platform support.

Just like most established businesses, it's not about can you make money doing x, but can you make more money doing x versus y. Again, SW has decided that the best business use of their limited resources is to retire FGC and put all their resources on FGU. That decision may or may not fit into individual best interest, but I do think it is in the best interest of the FG community.

As always, I'm sure SW appreciates everyone's feedback and opinions.

[ChrisRevocateur]

Everything that works with FGC now will continue to work with it in perpetuity, it's just not getting anything new. I think that's really as much as we can ask for as consumers, anything beyond that would be their generosity.

[ProfDogg]

Actually they are mostly sold via DMsGuild which is a subsidiary of DriveThru. I believe their are one or two companies that have licenses to sell FG modules on the DriveThru directly, but those require specific license agreements. If not being sold via the DMsGuild agreement or a direct license agreement with SmiteWorks, then they are being sold in violation of copyright notices and should be brought to the attention of FG support directly.

Yep, but that's not a copyright "issue", that's just licensing. The rights can be licensed. Likewise Smiteworks could also just sell off fantasy grounds classic completely to another entity. It is a different product after all. It would be competition of course but the RPG industry actually thrives on business diversity.