Announcing Project Jumpgate: Our Modern Overhaul of the Roll20 VTT

That looks very promising! Hopefully this will eliminate some performance problems that have been reported in the last year. I'd love to know what VTT technologies this would improve or allow: better animated map possibilities, for instance. But I suppose all this will be revealed in time. Exciting!

In the 10 years I have used the site I have to say I am impressed with what you have done. I am so glad to see Riley being more in the forefront again. He pretty much created Roll-20 I am sure transitioning from the only coder to a management role has been taxing.

Does this include the macro/roll parser? Currently parsing nested rolls is so slow it's theoretically possible to make a one click macro to measure network latency. 

Very much hoping the new engine will allow for visual fidelity improvements like a foreground layer & more modern visuals on lights (eg. fade out/flickering, toggle on/off lamps etc). I know how much technical debt can impede the dev process, so I'm excited to see what you can all do to modernize Roll20 with that out of the way!

This is super exciting!

This looks great on the backend, but is there a chance we could get a legacy/classic UI option too?

Having been a Roll20 user for almost 11 years now, I am very glad to see all these recent developments. And despite his modesty, I think Riley's return is the best thing to happen to Roll20 in a long time. I was once this close to leaving for a competitor... But Riley's return convinced me to stick around.

This is exciting, and/but, Roll20 has been working the Best and most-functional-ever, in the last few months, since the Left-Hand toolbar came out. (Also Dark Mode, also Page Folders, also API stability). I hope the current state isn't a quickly-passing Era of Roll20. I'd like to live and keep playing with the current feature-set for a long time. Hopefully the Jumpgate will not occlude the current usability. The Jumpgate will probably follow and continue this trajectory of improvements. It looks like it is in-line with the current/recent philosophy of design. Hopefully the worst enemy of Good VTT is not "Make it better" in this case. 

RainbowEncoder said: Does this include the macro/roll parser? Currently parsing nested rolls is so slow it's theoretically possible to make a one click macro to measure network latency.  I'm hoping that the macro/roll parser gets an update as well ( suggestion 1 , suggestion 2 ).  There was also a change a couple of years ago to address the nested query html substitution issue , but that somehow broke existing macros.  It was rolled back , but then never addressed again.  Is this still on the feature roadmap?  I would love to be able to nest queries and macros without using html substitutions.

Been with Roll20 since 2012 and love it.  This is good news. I'm hoping that part of this is to actually support webm animated maps as well.  That would be a huge deal.  (Roll20 says they do, but a quick search on the forums as well as actually trying to use one says otherwise)  Super excited to see the various updates though.  Thanks.

So does this impact sheet/compendium APIs or should that be transparent content creators and sheet authors?

I just hope that this will finally bring proper support to hex maps/tokens, and the chat functionality (which is literally the best out of all VTTs i personally tried for text only play) will stay intact.

This is really exciting!

as far as upgrades, please revist adding variables (even if a limited number of registers as a alternative to an unlimited number of custome variables) and if/then/else and/or case functionality to macros/abilites. 

+1 on this! Dalton said: as far as upgrades, please revist adding variables (even if a limited number of registers as a alternative to an unlimited number of custome variables) and if/then/else and/or case functionality to macros/abilites. 

This looks excellent, especially animated tokens running more smoothly. On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely is it that Jumpgate will include the foreground map layer that is currently the third most requested action item (second most among ones that haven't been implemented!) in the suggestion forum?

Riley D. said: I am not sure that it will launch when Jumpgate itself launches, but I will say that the work going into Jumpgate unblocks us supporting additional layers and the work would be prioritized shortly thereafter if we don't get to it during the initial round of changes. Excellent!

Riley, Jumpgate sounds like an excellent upgrade. Will it support all of the game systems currently supported in Legacy Roll20? For example AD&D 2nd Edition?

I hope the new version doesn't require adventures to be updated. The last two Dynamic Lighting rewrites caused breaking changes in existing adventures.

Brian C. said: I hope the new version doesn't require adventures to be updated. The last two Dynamic Lighting rewrites caused breaking changes in existing adventures. Or if they do, that Roll20 updates every single adventure available BEFORE forcing out a full release to all users.

This looks like an exciting and welcome upgrade, can't wait to try it out! I saw layers in one of the UI interfaces which is going to be sooo nice if they function similarly to some drawing and design programs. 

I must say, I'm very hopeful about all of this. It sounds like a solid, well thought-out plan. But given some recent incidents with changes affecting anyone, my key question is: will this be done as a voluntary beta?  V1.0 of anything is guaranteed to be buggy, and above all, the stability of Roll20 is a big reason I'm a user.  It's not without it's problems, but I can generally count on it working when I run a game, except when code gets pushed to everyone on a Friday afternoon. I don't mind throwing my players into a beta once I think it's stable, but that's assuming I get to make that decision AND have a way to back out mid-game if I'm wrong.  I'm not here to software test. I'm here to entertain my friends on a Saturday evening.

Ken S. said: But given some recent incidents with changes affecting anyone, my key question is: will this be done as a voluntary beta?  From the blog linked in the top post: Our goal is to launch Jumpgate into Beta for Pro Users by the end of Q1 2024. At that point you will be able to import existing Roll20 games into Jumpgate for playtesting.  So, yeah, it sounds like a whole new playground that you will actually need to copy your game into in order to playtest, not just a switch like we have for the current, incremental changes.

Riley D. said: Hey all, We've got a new blog post up today discussing all the latest in our quest to get Jumpgate into Beta. Check it out here:&nbsp; <a href="https://blog.roll20.net/posts/jumpgate-crafting-delightful-surprises/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.roll20.net/posts/jumpgate-crafting-delightful-surprises/</a> Would love to get some early feedback on these new user experience patterns if you have them...we're particularly interested in finding out how people might want to utilize the "space beside the page." Can't wait to keep sharing more with you all about these little quality of life improvements we're bringing in Jumpgate, every day the team is surfacing more and more of them! I like the idea of being able to put things off the table, so to speak, but I also worry that it would be easy to lose things that are off the table.&nbsp; When you are running a game, you want to be able to react really quickly and not tell your players "hand on a sec, where did I put..."&nbsp; Would it be possible to create anchor points on the VTT or off the table?&nbsp; I'm envisioning you drop an anchor icon on screen, then you are prompted to name the anchor.&nbsp; Anchors then appear in an expandable list or as alerts on screen.&nbsp; If you click the anchor from expandable list or alert, your GM view is immediately centered on the anchor location.&nbsp; Anchors could also be used for many other times when a GM wants to jump to a specific spot on the map quickly. Other than that, looks cool so far.&nbsp; Looking forward to being able to try out Jumpgate. -Adam

Some good ideas there, looking forward to trying it out. As someone with a couple of monitors I think what would work better for me is to have a separate 'scratchpad' area window which I can drag onto another monitor to hold the things you're putting off-map. More folders for everyting and the ability to transmogrify a sub-folder would be useful. or have the transmogrify screen reflect the folder structures in the source and estination games. How about a way of viewing and organisng game assets (maps, tokens, handouts etc) without running the game, have it, say, as an option on the game where you currently set game options and setup api stuff.

Adam Caramon said: I like the idea of being able to put things off the table, so to speak, but I also worry that it would be easy to lose things that are off the table.&nbsp; When you are running a game, you want to be able to react really quickly and not tell your players "hand on a sec, where did I put..."&nbsp; Would it be possible to create anchor points on the VTT or off the table?&nbsp; I'm envisioning you drop an anchor icon on screen, then you are prompted to name the anchor.&nbsp; Anchors then appear in an expandable list or as alerts on screen.&nbsp; If you click the anchor from expandable list or alert, your GM view is immediately centered on the anchor location.&nbsp; Anchors could also be used for many other times when a GM wants to jump to a specific spot on the map quickly. Other than that, looks cool so far.&nbsp; Looking forward to being able to try out Jumpgate. -Adam I know this thread is about new base features, but any Pro users who are looking for that sort of functionality right now, the Pingbuddy script can provide that.

I really like the "off the map and hidden from players" concept even as it is (and I run games with a multiple monitor setup), but I also would really like to have pop-out windows for things like character sheets that I could move to another monitor (if you do that today, a lot of weirdness ensues in terms of functionality). And I think (for some of us) it would be useful to have that scratchpad area also be something we could pop out. or tile within the VTT window (eg., if the party is on the left side of a big map on the VTT, I want my scratchpad on the left, if they're on the right, I'd want it on the right. So maybe free-form tileable frames for the main map, a map-like scratchpad, the chat log, etc you can position as you like, within a window (for those who easily lose separate windows behind the main one) or as separate pop-out&nbsp; windows (for us multi-monitor folks). As a player, I'm not sure how I'd use such a scratchpad space, but I'm sure I'd find something. However, as a DM with a bunch of mostly-casual players, I spend a lot of time helping them fix problems.&nbsp; I actually like that I can see their sheet as they update it (and they can see my changes) as it makes talking them through things easier.&nbsp; I'm concerned that a scratchpad visible only to the player would end up being something where they have questions and I can't see what they're asking about.&nbsp; Making these scratchpads an object rather than a potion of the map, and making them DM-visible (maybe from a right-click menu on their avatar and/or token) could solve that. You could even give them player-editable permissions, so two players could share a scratchpad for planning, or whatever. This is beginning to sound a lot like multiple invidivual maps on one VTT, which could be useful in a host of other ways (2nd floor of a house, etc). Hey, if I'm going to dream, I'll dream big. Don't just think outside the box, erase the box! @Adam Caramon's idea about anchor points so you can quickly find the correct area of the sidebar (or popped-out scratchpad) from the map also sounds very useful. Pan anywhere - oh, how useful that would be. More as a player than a DM (I like to keep my sheet on the right side of the vtt and the active portion of the map on the left, and that doesn't work today when the action is on the right side of the map). I am looking forward to kicking the tires on Jumpgate when the beta comes out.

I would like to see a better way to link Macros and handouts. Currently it can be done by putting the URL of the handout in a MACRO but it is not portable using Transmogrification where as putting the name of a handout on square brackets in another handout to form a link is portable.

Without checking it out (I have not playtested the JumpGate Beta),&nbsp; Make sure that objects off-the-page, beside-the-page, cannot accidentally get hidden UNDER the page.&nbsp; And what if you have objects beside-the-page, but you Grow the page size to a size that would cover-over? Make sure that the objects beside the page scoot-over and remain beside-the-page if the Page Size grows.&nbsp; Riley D. said: Would love to get some early feedback on these new user experience patterns if you have them...we're particularly interested in finding out how people might want to utilize the "space beside the page."

This looks and sounds amazing so far! Please make sure you do QA testing on macOS. In previous iterations of Roll20, some features were unavailable (or at least inconvenient) on macOS because of (I assume) the different modifier key codes.&nbsp;

I'm really hoping that zooming in and out will have the map centre on the mouse position when using the mouse wheel for zoom. And keep the map centred on the centre of the VTT when zooming any other means (zoom slider), even when the map does not fill the view. I would be a very happy DM. But I'm looking forward to trying out the beta.

Riley D. said: Would love to get some early feedback on these new user experience patterns if you have them...we're particularly interested in finding out how people might want to utilize the "space beside the page." I know if my players have access to it then it will just be filled with crude drawings of dongs in like 2 seconds. My grown adult friends are children.

Riley D. said: Hey all, We've got a new blog post up today discussing all the latest in our quest to get Jumpgate into Beta. Check it out here:&nbsp; <a href="https://blog.roll20.net/posts/jumpgate-crafting-delightful-surprises/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.roll20.net/posts/jumpgate-crafting-delightful-surprises/</a> Would love to get some early feedback on these new user experience patterns if you have them...we're particularly interested in finding out how people might want to utilize the "space beside the page." Can't wait to keep sharing more with you all about these little quality of life improvements we're bringing in Jumpgate, every day the team is surfacing more and more of them! As a creator of adventure products on Roll20, I stage all the NPCs/monsters on the GM layer in my products so they are in the most likely starting positions as the PCs move through a map. Currently, a GM has to go to the GM Layer, select the tokens, and send them to the Token Layer. Similar but different to the sideboard option that Jumpgate is working on: What would be super useful for me and my customers would be for the GM to have a way to "reach into" other layers like the GM Layer and pull the token/drawing object directly to the current layer without having to switch layers. This would greatly speed up play at the table during the setup phase of encounters. There are plenty of scenarios where the sideboard would be the superior option, but something that let's the GM select from other layers and bring to the current layer would provide a nice reduction in the time it takes to get an encounter up and running.