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Valyar
Posts: 338
Joined: Mon 18 Feb 2019, 22:41

Re: Vaesen is now on Fantasy Grounds

Thu 14 Jan 2021, 18:45

Price!!! Unholy pandas - this is the same problem as with the Aliens VTT modules - way to expensive for us backers. We pay premium price (and then some) for the books and then we need to pay ca +55% extra to get access to the VTT modules. This is making me mad and very disappointed.
I understand your point of view, I have been more often than not in the same position when it comes to content on different platforms. But there are reasons behind that. VTT products are not just digital version of the book where the text is copy-pasted by some script (which is not really possible due to the way PDF is designed and works). Each one ruleset or module) takes time to plan, develop, test and then maintain over the years. It is product on its own. In very rare cases it is provided free of charge or at reduced price.
 
Gangir
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu 06 Sep 2018, 14:11
Location: Mölnlycke

Re: Vaesen is now on Fantasy Grounds

Mon 18 Jan 2021, 17:21

Price!!! Unholy pandas - this is the same problem as with the Aliens VTT modules - way to expensive for us backers. We pay premium price (and then some) for the books and then we need to pay ca +55% extra to get access to the VTT modules. This is making me mad and very disappointed.
I understand your point of view, I have been more often than not in the same position when it comes to content on different platforms. But there are reasons behind that. VTT products are not just digital version of the book where the text is copy-pasted by some script (which is not really possible due to the way PDF is designed and works). Each one ruleset or module) takes time to plan, develop, test and then maintain over the years. It is product on its own. In very rare cases it is provided free of charge or at reduced price.
I do not agree on how much work there is behind the VTT editions, it mostly text and design thatr can these days be easy convertet from pdf to whatever and FriaLigan do own the original document which makes it much easier (legan and practical). For the rules system that should not pose any problem at all since the Y0 engine is already in place, some smaller changes that all.
 
SimonL
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon 18 Jan 2021, 19:50

Re: Vaesen is now on Fantasy Grounds

Mon 18 Jan 2021, 19:54

Price!!! Unholy pandas - this is the same problem as with the Aliens VTT modules - way to expensive for us backers. We pay premium price (and then some) for the books and then we need to pay ca +55% extra to get access to the VTT modules. This is making me mad and very disappointed.
I understand your point of view, I have been more often than not in the same position when it comes to content on different platforms. But there are reasons behind that. VTT products are not just digital version of the book where the text is copy-pasted by some script (which is not really possible due to the way PDF is designed and works). Each one ruleset or module) takes time to plan, develop, test and then maintain over the years. It is product on its own. In very rare cases it is provided free of charge or at reduced price.
I do not agree on how much work there is behind the VTT editions, it mostly text and design thatr can these days be easy convertet from pdf to whatever and FriaLigan do own the original document which makes it much easier (legan and practical). For the rules system that should not pose any problem at all since the Y0 engine is already in place, some smaller changes that all.
Hi!

I'm the programmer that has been a part of the development for the Fantasy Grounds ruleset. I can assure you that it's not as easy as you describe. If you are interested, I can fill you in on the details and specification of what we've done and the amount of code, design and work that has gone in. A ruleset in Fantasy Grounds is not like implementing a character sheet in roll20.

Have a good day!

Thanks,
Simon
 
Gangir
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu 06 Sep 2018, 14:11
Location: Mölnlycke

Re: Vaesen is now on Fantasy Grounds

Tue 19 Jan 2021, 13:56


I understand your point of view, I have been more often than not in the same position when it comes to content on different platforms. But there are reasons behind that. VTT products are not just digital version of the book where the text is copy-pasted by some script (which is not really possible due to the way PDF is designed and works). Each one ruleset or module) takes time to plan, develop, test and then maintain over the years. It is product on its own. In very rare cases it is provided free of charge or at reduced price.
I do not agree on how much work there is behind the VTT editions, it mostly text and design thatr can these days be easy convertet from pdf to whatever and FriaLigan do own the original document which makes it much easier (legan and practical). For the rules system that should not pose any problem at all since the Y0 engine is already in place, some smaller changes that all.
Hi!

I'm the programmer that has been a part of the development for the Fantasy Grounds ruleset. I can assure you that it's not as easy as you describe. If you are interested, I can fill you in on the details and specification of what we've done and the amount of code, design and work that has gone in. A ruleset in Fantasy Grounds is not like implementing a character sheet in roll20.

Have a good day!

Thanks,
Simon

Please do as Im very interested as I'm involved in other VTT.
 
SimonL
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon 18 Jan 2021, 19:50

Re: Vaesen is now on Fantasy Grounds

Tue 19 Jan 2021, 22:16

Ok sure! I'm not sure how familiar you are with FG though, so maybe some things are not very obvious.

There's more than 250 kbytes of lua-code in the ruleset, all customized for Vaesen. For example there is an implementation for how the combat tracker handles attacks - which involves each of the different actions that players/enemies can take depending on the amount of successes. Since the implementation of the die-rolls (which includes modifiers from skills, attributes, effects, gear, conditions and custom modifiers) yield a resulting amount of successes (hopefully), that is transferred to the separate handler of attacks where you as the gm or the player can select the different actions for each of the extra successes in each attack. This is also where players or enemies can have their blocking or parrying applied to the attack. All handled together in a quite seamless and automated way. As someone who has about 5-600 hours of Fantasy Grounds ruleset development prior to Vaesen I had no real problems with implementing this - this might not be considered impressive but I also have 14 years of experience as a professional game programmer and I'm doing this in my spare time for what results in practically beer-money.

When you deal damage, and the automatic armor roll is made - the appropriate amount of damage is applied to the receiving end and the damage is applied uniquely depending on if it's a player, vaesen, animal or npc that's being hit. All of the mentioned parts are naturally networked. So when a player makes a roll, all of that is invoked on the client and distributed from there - that's how FG handles rolls but most of the logic is handled by the ruleset.

Now this is some of the more complex automation that's done in the ruleset, but if you think that setups like this in an engine like Fantasy Grounds is done in a few hours - I'm sorry to say that you are severely mistaken. And the sales on the Fantasy Grounds platform is not high enough to yield any riches that I can bathe in, and the engine and api's (CoreRPG in particular) has a lot of room for improvement.

However, fortunately for you - you can always implement the ruleset on your own in the fantasy grounds engine - if you have an appropriate FG license. And then the ruleset itself won't cost you anything. As long as you don't spread the work and it's only for your own use I think you're allowed to do that. However don't quote me on it - I don't know all the legal stuff :)

Hope that helps!

Thanks,
Simon
 
Gangir
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu 06 Sep 2018, 14:11
Location: Mölnlycke

Re: Vaesen is now on Fantasy Grounds

Wed 20 Jan 2021, 14:14

Ok sure! I'm not sure how familiar you are with FG though, so maybe some things are not very obvious.

There's more than 250 kbytes of lua-code in the ruleset, all customized for Vaesen. For example there is an implementation for how the combat tracker handles attacks - which involves each of the different actions that players/enemies can take depending on the amount of successes. Since the implementation of the die-rolls (which includes modifiers from skills, attributes, effects, gear, conditions and custom modifiers) yield a resulting amount of successes (hopefully), that is transferred to the separate handler of attacks where you as the gm or the player can select the different actions for each of the extra successes in each attack. This is also where players or enemies can have their blocking or parrying applied to the attack. All handled together in a quite seamless and automated way. As someone who has about 5-600 hours of Fantasy Grounds ruleset development prior to Vaesen I had no real problems with implementing this - this might not be considered impressive but I also have 14 years of experience as a professional game programmer and I'm doing this in my spare time for what results in practically beer-money.

When you deal damage, and the automatic armor roll is made - the appropriate amount of damage is applied to the receiving end and the damage is applied uniquely depending on if it's a player, vaesen, animal or npc that's being hit. All of the mentioned parts are naturally networked. So when a player makes a roll, all of that is invoked on the client and distributed from there - that's how FG handles rolls but most of the logic is handled by the ruleset.

Now this is some of the more complex automation that's done in the ruleset, but if you think that setups like this in an engine like Fantasy Grounds is done in a few hours - I'm sorry to say that you are severely mistaken. And the sales on the Fantasy Grounds platform is not high enough to yield any riches that I can bathe in, and the engine and api's (CoreRPG in particular) has a lot of room for improvement.

However, fortunately for you - you can always implement the ruleset on your own in the fantasy grounds engine - if you have an appropriate FG license. And then the ruleset itself won't cost you anything. As long as you don't spread the work and it's only for your own use I think you're allowed to do that. However don't quote me on it - I don't know all the legal stuff :)

Hope that helps!

Thanks,
Simon
Thanks for the great answer!!! I know that there are few shortcuts when it comes to different systems and you have done a great work here.
My main concern is that Y0 engine games all have a lot in common and that should at least speed up the process on that latter systems.

Great work - I have to say that again.

Have you worked on some of the more recent VTT - LetsRole or Foundry? Both which I find a lot easier to work with.
 
SimonL
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon 18 Jan 2021, 19:50

Re: Vaesen is now on Fantasy Grounds

Wed 20 Jan 2021, 18:11

Ok sure! I'm not sure how familiar you are with FG though, so maybe some things are not very obvious.

There's more than 250 kbytes of lua-code in the ruleset, all customized for Vaesen. For example there is an implementation for how the combat tracker handles attacks - which involves each of the different actions that players/enemies can take depending on the amount of successes. Since the implementation of the die-rolls (which includes modifiers from skills, attributes, effects, gear, conditions and custom modifiers) yield a resulting amount of successes (hopefully), that is transferred to the separate handler of attacks where you as the gm or the player can select the different actions for each of the extra successes in each attack. This is also where players or enemies can have their blocking or parrying applied to the attack. All handled together in a quite seamless and automated way. As someone who has about 5-600 hours of Fantasy Grounds ruleset development prior to Vaesen I had no real problems with implementing this - this might not be considered impressive but I also have 14 years of experience as a professional game programmer and I'm doing this in my spare time for what results in practically beer-money.

When you deal damage, and the automatic armor roll is made - the appropriate amount of damage is applied to the receiving end and the damage is applied uniquely depending on if it's a player, vaesen, animal or npc that's being hit. All of the mentioned parts are naturally networked. So when a player makes a roll, all of that is invoked on the client and distributed from there - that's how FG handles rolls but most of the logic is handled by the ruleset.

Now this is some of the more complex automation that's done in the ruleset, but if you think that setups like this in an engine like Fantasy Grounds is done in a few hours - I'm sorry to say that you are severely mistaken. And the sales on the Fantasy Grounds platform is not high enough to yield any riches that I can bathe in, and the engine and api's (CoreRPG in particular) has a lot of room for improvement.

However, fortunately for you - you can always implement the ruleset on your own in the fantasy grounds engine - if you have an appropriate FG license. And then the ruleset itself won't cost you anything. As long as you don't spread the work and it's only for your own use I think you're allowed to do that. However don't quote me on it - I don't know all the legal stuff :)

Hope that helps!

Thanks,
Simon
Thanks for the great answer!!! I know that there are few shortcuts when it comes to different systems and you have done a great work here.
My main concern is that Y0 engine games all have a lot in common and that should at least speed up the process on that latter systems.

Great work - I have to say that again.

Have you worked on some of the more recent VTT - LetsRole or Foundry? Both which I find a lot easier to work with.
Yes there are a few things that I can just look at how I did in a previous version and then reuse it here. When it comes to YZ0 (we did the Alien ruleset as well), there are some things that can be reused, like the rolls and pushing is very straightforward to just copy-paste once you've done it. Unfortunately that's not the things that takes the most time. What takes the most time is the little quirks and getting the things that actually differ between the yz0 games. The basic YZ0 rolls was probably implemented in an evening or so. The layout (which I'm fortunate enough to not have to touch for the most part) is extremely tedious and takes a lot of time. As well as the unique parts of the rules which require implementations that are usually complex to get right. But yes you are correct, in particular it helps understanding the rules a LOT faster than coming to a completely brand new set of rules that has completely new quirks that you've already figured out.

Thank you very much, it's truly appreciated!

We've looked a bit at foundry, not I personally but Valyar has looked into it quite a lot. I have not heard about LetsRole - will look into it though, thanks! And yes the FG frameworks are clunky and hard to work with, but personally I think that when compared with Roll20 and Foundry, I appreciate FG a lot more. The whole web-based thing seemed nice to me in the start but practically I think that they are a lot harder to use than FG. It's probably because I'm used to FG :)

Thanks,
Simon

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