Roll20 Announcement - Price Increase

Generous grace period!

Wellp, time to foundry

DCadarn said:

Wellp, time to foundry

In July 2023 when your price goes up?

Price increases happen, not a big deal its what a dollar more?. But other than improving the dynamic lighting system which you guys never shut up about and most of us don't really feel improved our games much. When are we supposed to be getting any kind of other actual improvements? 

Various user interface elements are as old as the platform, they look trite and glaringly ugly when compared to other platforms that are actively being developed. Managing music files and assets is a pain in the ass and needs to be smoother. 

Custom character sheets are inaccessible to those without a coding degree despite probably being relatively simple enough to program a basic plug and play solution with simple tables and fill in the blank areas for custom attributes and values and calculatable fields. Try building tools for new and old players a like so they can customize their sheets for their custom games. Same thing with Macros, how hard is it to create a sort of tool or asset to help newer players or even existing ones program their custom actions and abilities easier? How about a customizable Compendium?

What the hell happened to mobile support? You've mentioned it before then it disappeared that was several years ago. Then the same thing happened last year? Then again this year? That's like a singular feature that could make you stand out against your competitors. But you're losing ground year by year as foundry, Fantasy grounds, and others are starting to realize how hard your neglecting your platform. 

I've been here since 2012, I'm pretty sure I've only stopped my subscription for a short time I had money issues. 10,000 hours and I've even bought a bunch of books and other assets. But I feel like I'm getting less and less for my money and now; you want to increase your subscription price.  

I'm starting to look towards other horizons I feel like all you guys have talked about for the last two years is the updated dynamic lighting system, as if we're supposed to be so impressed by the performance gains and technical ability. That's awesome, but it hasn't changed my games at all if more than by a few negligible degrees. 

All I have to say is: do something, please. 

M said:

What the hell happened to mobile support? You've mentioned it before then it disappeared that was several years ago. Then the same thing happened last year? Then again this year? That's like a singular feature that could make you stand out against your competitors. But you're losing ground year by year as foundry, Fantasy grounds, and others are starting to realize how hard your neglecting your platform. 

Just to mention, mobile support was made free to all users year before last, IIRC. It existed for years before that, of course, as a paid option. Unless you are talking about something else?

I'm talking about actual functioning mobile support. Not a barely operating beta quality chat and die roller and that's all the app has been for years. There's never been proper support for mobile in any quality worth having. Any argument contrary is joke. All you have to do is login the app and you'll notice straight away that the aspect ratio is off as you pan around looking for the login fields. 

It can't even render the map, which is 90% of the functionality of Roll20. You can't even use the character sheets. So all that's left is a wholly inadequate dice roller and chat log. Then there's the "handouts" which are also barely functional and don't conform to the aspect ratio. So yes if you want to pretend that's mobile support then I yield my protest. 

keithcurtis said:

M said:

What the hell happened to mobile support? You've mentioned it before then it disappeared that was several years ago. Then the same thing happened last year? Then again this year? That's like a singular feature that could make you stand out against your competitors. But you're losing ground year by year as foundry, Fantasy grounds, and others are starting to realize how hard your neglecting your platform. 

Just to mention, mobile support was made free to all users year before last, IIRC. It existed for years before that, of course, as a paid option. Unless you are talking about something else?

When you say Mobile Support, I assumed you meant Table on Tablet, not the Mobile App (which is new, and unrelated to the old app). You can run the whole Roll20 site on a tablet or even a phone if the screen is large enough to make it worthwhile.

Brian C. said:

DCadarn said:

Wellp, time to foundry

In July 2023 when your price goes up?

Does it matter? Roll20 is my plattform of choice and I enjoy it but it's getting old FAST and seems like there is nothing on sight. Other platforms make what we make here with soooooooooooo much less effort and that's frustrating. I'm a pro subscriber and the pricer going up when Roll20 is doing absolutelly nothing to keep ahead of the competition seems ridiculous.

DCadarn said:

Other platforms make what we make here with soooooooooooo much less effort and that's frustrating.

I guess that really depends on how you use the platform.  I make a lot of use of macro (character) sheets.  In games with a lot of abilities, that is a lot more convenient than a compendium, because then I can just copy a menu from the macro sheet to whatever sheet I am building instead of having to drag and drop however many dozen individual things from a compendium.  The way character sheets evolved on Roll20 allows me to write (for example) all psionic ability macros on a sheet with the @{selected| syntax, and every character in the game will use that one list of macros.  If I decide to change an ability, I edit one ability on the macro sheet, and every psion in the game will now use the new version. 

So far, no other VTT seems to offer a similar functionality. 

It will also take quite some time for another VTT to catch up to the sheer number of available system sheets as well.

Kraynic said:

DCadarn said:

Other platforms make what we make here with soooooooooooo much less effort and that's frustrating.

I guess that really depends on how you use the platform.  I make a lot of use of macro (character) sheets.  In games with a lot of abilities, that is a lot more convenient than a compendium, because then I can just copy a menu from the macro sheet to whatever sheet I am building instead of having to drag and drop however many dozen individual things from a compendium.  The way character sheets evolved on Roll20 allows me to write (for example) all psionic ability macros on a sheet with the @{selected| syntax, and every character in the game will use that one list of macros.  If I decide to change an ability, I edit one ability on the macro sheet, and every psion in the game will now use the new version. 

So far, no other VTT seems to offer a similar functionality. 

It will also take quite some time for another VTT to catch up to the sheer number of available system sheets as well.

Depends on the VTT...one VTT in particular you're correct, but that VTT also allows people to make custom character sheets and everyone automatically gets the API, etc.

And the way that VTT does compendiums allows a user to make a custom compendium that integrates with an official compendium easily. Not to mention, some of the back end coding for people wanting to customize is a lot easier.

That being said, R20 is still my platform of choice, but...I'd be a liar if I said I didn't have wandering eyes...there's a lot of shiny out there, now.

And here i was thinking with all the FREE quality control and help roll20 was getting from its paying user base for UDL and token 'improvements' they would be offering a free 6 month or year subscriptions to everyone that helped out.....nope a fee increase.....interesting.

So when you say to renew subscription what does that mean? Starting now? Or am I good since I renewed a few months ago.

I typically don't comment on these,but this has me needing to.

Roll20,Why jack the prices when you haven't been fixing anything. You've been hyping up UDL for like 2 years and i don't see it being worthwhile. Also as a Canadian paying even higher prices than advertised your platform's just not worthwhile for me anymore.

More than likely cancelling my subscription, only going to use my account for the games I am in at this point. I've moved on from Roll20

Been using Roll20 for years now, have invested alot of money into modules and now I'm seeing what other places are doing and adding to their platforms. Right now I'm holding off on purchasing anything more until I see Roll20 start improving their features. If another year goes by and we still havent had any meaningful features then I think its going to be time to bite the bullet and move on... 

GM Joe said:

Been using Roll20 for years now, have invested alot of money into modules and now I'm seeing what other places are doing and adding to their platforms. Right now I'm holding off on purchasing anything more until I see Roll20 start improving their features. If another year goes by and we still havent had any meaningful features then I think its going to be time to bite the bullet and move on... 

In my estimation, the new options have serious sustainability options so I'm hesitant to invest in significant assets on them.  The lifetime license that Foundry sells is a dead end.  FG has the same model and the platform stagnated for a very long time due to lack of revenue.  They had to do a Kickstarter to fund their long-promised new edition. 

That said, the biggest factor is Roll20's user base.  None of the alternatives seem to have any significant user base to draw from.  Official game finding channels for them are pitiful, basically.  You may see a few games advertised per day.  If one of them were to focus on this and develop a community of players and GMs that started to compete with Roll20's numbers, then I'd say the calculus would start to change and I'd reconsider their viability.

But, like you, I'm holding off on any major content purchases on Roll20 until things settle out more.

You need to make it easier for the GM to do their job.  The amount of time it takes to set things up is mind boggling. 

Michael L. said:

You need to make it easier for the GM to do their job.  The amount of time it takes to set things up is mind boggling. 

This particular thread is about the price increase, but if you want to make a forum post listing your greatest preparation pain points, I'd be happy to make any suggestions I can to reduce the annoyance. In fact, I bet a lot of users would.

As a long time member, but didn’t really start using the platform until last year, I am perplexed at the lack of innovation. I’m a pro sub, but the limited SUPPORTED rulesets, the lack of automation (without substantial coding basics), the instability/lag, the learning curve as a GM/DM is painful (especially if you have never used API/scripting/macros before), so a price hike is very mind boggling. Honestly if I hadn’t invested so heavily into assets and content, very little of which I even own mind you.. I’d leave today. Which is a shame because the Roll20 forum community is pretty amazing. The Aaron of KiethCurtis have both helped me numerous times! So much love! 

This could be a great platform. There are some really neat things here on roll20. UDL is neat, but complicated and not worth the price, to me. The looking for game is nice, though a giant pain in the arse to get into a game but that’s not the platforms fault. That’s a lack of free games and an abundance of players vs DMs. I have brought at least 12 new people here. All have left because they didn’t like the system compared to other VTT’s. They so has this complaint or other, the monetization was an issue. Why make authorization cost money when FG offers it as part of the system? For an example. At some point you’re going to bless us too much, and the community which is by far the one saving grace will dry up. I hope that doesn’t happen. I’m locked in. So for now this first effect me. But if it does... I may find myself on the outside playing on FGU I hear they have UDL also... just saying. 

DCadarn said:

Brian C. said:

DCadarn said:

Wellp, time to foundry

In July 2023 when your price goes up?

Does it matter? Roll20 is my plattform of choice and I enjoy it but it's getting old FAST and seems like there is nothing on sight. Other platforms make what we make here with soooooooooooo much less effort and that's frustrating. I'm a pro subscriber and the pricer going up when Roll20 is doing absolutelly nothing to keep ahead of the competition seems ridiculous.

This is how I feel!!! 

So, despite the continued technical problems, we now pay more for a broken product?  How is the UDL going out of interest?  Oh, yeah, we've got a grace period of 2 years, so hopefully you'll have your programming fixed by then.

Ian N. said:

How is the UDL going out of interest?

Well, my experience with it is pretty good, actually.  I haven't had any issues with the 2 games I copied and switched to UDL.  Nor have any of my players so far.

After spending several hours trying to figure out the table/macro system and discovering that making a macro that queries a roll and then queries a table based on a binary result of that roll takes a master's in computer science to accomplish (making a saving throw and then rolling on a table if the save is not passed), I must say that this price increase has made me want to move on. I have sat while my players or myself have spent 5-10 minutes logging and re-logging on to try and get in. In the year I've been on the only "improvement" I've seen is dynamic lighting, and that is essentially just an improvement on an already existing item. It is sad that Roll20 cannot keep up with its competitors, especially since I have sunk money into various modules and such. Moving my campaigns will be a pain, but if this program is going nowhere, what am I spending $110 a year on when I could be spending $50 ONCE?

It reminds me of Poser vs. Daz Studio, a couple of graphics programs. For a long time, Poser was the only game in town, but they relied on people being unwilling to move because they had invested so much in it. Vegas uses the same formula -- I've paid X, so I might as well pay Y more. Daz produced a superior product and invested the profits back into their program, and now they are the king of the hill (although there are other programs on the horizon).

So this is the challenge. Roll20 has until my new yearly subscription expires to convince me to stay. I welcome other users or Roll20 reps to comment -- perhaps there is a compelling answer that I am missing. But I for one will not throw good money after bad. If that means learning a new system that's modern, easy to use and learn, and costs less, so be it. I do truly feel sorry for those who have 10+ years on the platform, with hundreds of API scripts, macros, and uploaded art. Remember, the whole point of this is to have fun playing RPGs, and it's hard to have fun when you feel like you're paying top dollar for a substandard system.

I understand the price increase and find the grace period a very good decision!
However, I would be very interested in having a development roadmap where I can understand what's being worked on and what may be in the horizon.
I feel like every time I buy books or modules in Roll20 I'm locking myself in more and more (sometimes at an understandable markup), and would continue purchasing more at ease if I can have an idea of what's coming.

From my POV, the future is getting a flawless UDL, infrastructure improvements and a very useful app. All of these get me very excited, would there be a better way to communicate this?

I would gladly pay more if the site worked. There have been many improvements since 2013, when I started, there have also been many frustrations, malfunctions and total failures. The UDL has, if anything, gotten worse as it is being developed. The glaring pink-white interface is migraine inducing. The Marketplace has all of the streamlined functionality of a rummage sale. The audio-video system doesn't work. Give me functioning dynamic lighting, Discord and access to a stable API and I am going to stick around. Many of my players have older, less powerful computers and lack the technical savvy to solve complicated tech trees.

Seems reasonable to me! Thanks for the grace period for current suscribers!

al e. said:

I would gladly pay more if the site worked.

Yeah, this is where I am at as well.  Honestly if the yearly sub for Pro doubled but Suggestions were actually implemented in a timely manner or closed out as not happening, and the system was stable and not laggy and the "Join a Game" function was not spammed by a few DMs posting a ton of advertisements, etc, etc, then I would be fine with it.  Overall it feels like Roll20 staff have been largely absent from the forums and users have been left to fend for themselves.

Maybe its time for a new tier of subscription where users can expect premium service from Roll20 staff for a higher cost.

-Adam

Personally, I think the increase in price is fine and justified, and the grace period is very generous. I've always been a Roll20 supporter through the years, and still enjoy the site.

I do however see the frustration that many others are feeling, and share the same frustrations myself with many of these opinions. In the end I am hoping that these improvements are made to where Roll20 can continue to thrive. I also fully understand the roadblocks that have made the improvements and updates difficult to achieve. I have felt for a while that it might have been better to build a Roll20 2.0 as opposed to re-building the existing code that seems to be built on a shaky foundation. It's definitely apparent that many of the updates have caused conflict with past code and that is what is making the development take so much longer, so perhaps the decision to rebuild instead of patch would have been a better choice.

I won't name competitors but I will admit that one in particular up and coming VTT is becoming quite "shiny" (as stated in a previous comment), and personally there are some things that specific VTT has done well to innovate, and I really would like to see similar functionality here as well. Specifically with a node based Dynamic lighting system (that makes editing walls much easier and also the nodes mean no more leaking in between wall lines that almost connect because the nodes are all connected and can be extended from or edited at any node point) and also the ability to have other types of walls - Terrain walls, Ethereal walls, and "Is a Door" wall lines that can be opened and closed by the players with a function set by the DM to be "Locked" or "Unlocked" or "Secret Door" (that functions as a clickable door line but is hidden from the players view so they don't actually know it is a door). That particular feature makes moving the lines no more and just a simple click just... thus time saving because you don't have to navigate layers once it is set up. Also a dedicated lighting source (as opposed to light sources being attached to character sheets) can strongly improve the system, and the ability to add "flickering" animations with the light sources attached to a CSS overlay color. These are all the "shiny" things that I really want to see here. Also the addition of a canopy/foreground layer would be amazing, which I know was mentioned at one point in the past but I haven't seen come out yet.

Also I'd love to see some improvement in the Marketplace section. Specifically in the in-app area where the search just doesn't seem to bring up accurate items, and tend to point at the same few sets that are "most popular all time". I'd love to see a filter there similar to the homepage marketplace to be able to sift popular to newest and relevant. Also as a creator, I see the back end of uploading and have been entering my tile and map sizes in anticipation that those items will one day drag and drop at the intended size. Finishing that particular feature would go a long way for everyone. Plus music. Just all around music. I'd love to see it on the marketplace, and also I would love to see it done differently all together than just from a Jukebox. While a Jukebox is helpful for a global music source, having sound sources on the table can really help immersion. A token that has a sound attached (like a crackling fireplace or a dripping water pipe) with a radius that lets the sound fade in as another token comes closer is a nice touch other VTTs have now. It would be cool to see 3 types of sound approaches - global jukebox (for looping songs) a soundboard (for quick sound effects) and token attached ambient noises with a sound radius that is blocked or muffled by dynamic lighting lines.

At the end of the Day, Roll20 is by far the easiest to learn of all the VTTs out there, and has the biggest feature of all with a compendium that has drag and drop functionality that just makes things so much faster and convenient from a DM standpoint. Plus the licensing with major publishers that help support that compendium (and charactermancer) just makes an amazing tool even better. I think the ability to have custom compendiums for DMs in their own campaigns would go a long way, that way we could create our own homebrew creatures and NPCs and be able to add them to any of our own created campaigns with that same drag and drop functionality to have the token set up and ready to go, and the sheets ready to roll.

I know a lot of my comment is consisting of "suggestions" and that is not the intended scope of this thread, but I do think it is all relevant in this space, as it is all connected with what we want to see as to what we are paying for. We are happy and willing to pay the extra, and are appreciative of the grace period, but these are the things we really want to see improved to maintain the greatest VTT. Thanks for the awesome years and I hope to see more in the future!

I kind of feel like I'm piling on at this point, but I wanted to say that I'm only still here for three reasons: availability of compendiums/modules, larger userbase from which to find players, and because one of my players has such a bad computer that she can't run that "shiny" vtt.

But really, I'm sure you Roll20 people have looked at the shiny vtt, and it's just great. It has some problems, and some unintuitive UI stuff, but it's so damned shiny. Also, the file size is huge, so we can actually have animated maps on there. Everyone loves the animated maps.

I've only played PF2 on there, and it was such an improvement. Moving stuff between containers, tracking spells, other things.

I do pay more there (well, specifically, I pay a hosting site more), but I get so much more, perhaps because I'm only paying for myself. I'm not saying that the freemium model is a bad idea. It's maybe why there's such a large userbase to draw from here. But it would be nice if I could, at the very least, have larger files in my much smaller than "shiny host's" storage space. Let me have animated battle maps, even if it fills my storage :)

We also understand that communication from us hasn't been what it could've been, resulting in those improvements being mostly unfelt by some of you. [...CLIPPED...] Still, since 2012 we have added a lot of features and value to the platform, and it's worth restating again that this price increase isn't related to any one feature in particular, but to better support the features we do have and to better build up the platform for you into the future.

I have seen a lot of new features, I know some folks are not recognizing them, but there have been good QOL improvements, such as the dice ray, a better ruler tool, clickable waypoints, custom token markers, and several others. So these aren't unnoticed and much appreciated! I think the UDL/LDL thing really threw a wrench in things though, so excited to see that improved! Hopefully my previous suggestion is looked at and considered

However, I would be very interested in having a development roadmap where I can understand what's being worked on and what may be in the horizon.
[...CLIPPED...]

That's a good suggestion in my opinion, and I'll bring that up as I think that's a public roadmap would be a good idea for better communication between us and you. No promises on anything coming from that of course, but I will be carrying that along!

I highly second the suggestion of a Roadmap front and center on the site somewhere that everyone can see. This would highly impact the transparency and communication quarrels. Also don't be afraid to say "We are still working on this [insert feature] to be better improved and it is not on schedule to be fully released before it is perfect. I think a lot of folks would be happy to see that both [insert feature] is being worked on and not being rushed to the live servers before they are perfect, and thus not causing unexpected breaks in other features.

Improve connectivity and lack of lag and we good!

Vayne said:

DCadarn said:

Brian C. said:

DCadarn said:

Wellp, time to foundry

In July 2023 when your price goes up?

Does it matter? Roll20 is my plattform of choice and I enjoy it but it's getting old FAST and seems like there is nothing on sight. Other platforms make what we make here with soooooooooooo much less effort and that's frustrating. I'm a pro subscriber and the pricer going up when Roll20 is doing absolutelly nothing to keep ahead of the competition seems ridiculous.

This is how I feel!!! 

Well, to be honest that's my impression too.

I fully understand that sometimes prices has to increase, and I am more than happy to follow this increase in case some substantial improvements can be made on the front end part to make GM work easier and player experience better as fellow scribes already pointed to in this thread. 

Hey, where are improvements the community is looking for so long? Custom Compendium support? Transmogrifier support of folders, macros ? Center map on player token when starting the game?

A substantial roadmap?

Anyway. me personally will take this courtesy period to see how roll20 will be doing things better than during the last years. There are some alternatives out there.

Munky said:

Personally, I think the increase in price is fine and justified, and the grace period is very generous. I've always been a Roll20 supporter through the years, and still enjoy the site.

I do however see the frustration that many others are feeling, and share the same frustrations myself with many of these opinions. In the end I am hoping that these improvements are made to where Roll20 can continue to thrive.

This is about where I am about this. The price increase is perfectly reasonable, the grace period is generous (and smart if roll20 is worried about dropping subscription numbers), I have no complaints in general about there. However, it is very poor looking PR at the moment to announce a price increase considering the numerous issues users have been experiencing with basic features of the platform for several months now.

I'm going to stay with roll20 for now, between this very generous grace period and the decision not to suspend LDL, however if the basic usability of the platform doesn't improve drastically I'm going to leave for a competitor long before the grace period has ended.

Dollar increase isn't too bad tbh. 
I Just Wish someone would answer back to the Transmogrifier Suggestion Post that Many Pro members need for Their accounts :'( 

So, I'm a freeloading newbie, make of that what you will.

I think this thread has a very good point. https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/10032736/monetize-players-better

Why is there no subscriber options for players?

I know nothing of how to run a game, I don't care about 3GB of storage or shared table features or modules and all that other stuff. I just want to play with my friends online. I'd happily pay something to support this site, if it had 2 particular features, no ads and customisable character sheets. Right now, I'm stuck with the character sheet that all the players in our game use. I have three monitors, plenty of screen space, and yet I can't change my spell slots without leaving my core sheet.

Increasing the pricing is entirely your perogative, however, you are also increasing the barriers to entry. Why don't you look at the number of free users you have on the site and see how much extra you could raise, if, say 1/4 of them decided to pay $29.99 per year? I'd be quite suprised if that didn't increase your income more than the price rises that you are implementing.

Instead of raising the cost on your paying customers, reduce the amount of nonpaying customers using your system.  Limit free account session creations to X amount, limit plus subscriptions sharing GM powers to X amount, and limit pro subscription sharing of sessions and GM powers to X amount.  Right now this is all set to unlimited and is the main reason your service is bogged down.  If your devs spent anytime in the active online dnd communities you'd know that you guys are being exploited heavily with shared sessions.  It is however also the reason why you still dominate foundry so don't lock this down fully or you run the risk of doing exactly what your price increase is about to do.  

I see absolutely no reason to pay more money to utilize your system.  My current card being charged by your services expires soonish.  If I'm screwed out of my grandfathered subscription early, mark my words, I'm going to foundry.  I'm not paying 2 years in advance when you guys have mismanaged your product so poorly in literally a golden age of vtt's during the pandemic.  

DM Eddie said:

<snip>

If roll20 did any of this I would leave immediately, and I feel like most of the userbase would as well. This is entirely the wrong way to approach the situation.