New: Combined Public Roadmap (D&D, VTT, Demiplane, Dungeon Scrawl)

This roadmap seems like more evidence that the functionality of  mods and macros has been entirely sacrificed for Demiplane.

Jayme, I hope that Roll20 will still put all those kinds of announcements on Community Forums, and open it up for Feedback from here.  After the first 2 days of the "Roadmap" I'm finding it.... a frustrating idea that I'd need to keep the Roadmap tab open and keep checking it every day to find out what's happening here. Then in the Blog introducing the Roadmap it says, basically, if users have any feedback on the Roadmap items they should go ahead and comment on either Bluesky or Discord or Reddit or Forum or Facebook or Instagram or Tiktok or YouTube or X.  Is that right? 9 places to give feedback on the Roadmap? I get that Roll20 has all of those social media and it's good to engage them, I have engaged with almost all of them. But which one(s) are actually monitored for user feedback on the specific Roadmap features? Which ones get a reply from Roll20 Team? If someone like me has actual input to one of the Roadmap items, did you want me to shotgun crosspost to every platform to hope for it to get attention? I need to reformat my feedback to fit into an X post, and that would be productive for the team working on the roadmap?  Over the years of Roll20 we've had Announcements come in many places. Anytime the announcements were not delivered to Community Forums, that wasn't a good period around here. I always come back to Community Forums being the central hub for substantive discussions of actual VTT features, with the opportunity for fellow users to see what feedback/answers come from Roll20 Team.  So, please post everything here that would land on Roadmap, in addition to the Roadmap page. 

I appreciate the Transparency. That is great. For a working example right now --- Where should we best give feedback on the 2 items that are in "Next"?  Getting To Play Faster Large Game Management I have had dialog with Lavi in a "random" Roll20 Forum thread about Large Game Management and that is fantastic (but felt random and buried, the thread where it occurred). I would like to see Roll20 post an Announcement thread that says "We are working on Large Game Management, do any users here have feedback on that? We would like to hear from GM's or Players in Large Games" and open that up.  The Roadmap has a field for Suggestions & Ideas thread.... and we have existing Suggestions threads for those topics. But the Roadmap does not contain that Suggestions & Ideas link. It says Suggestions & Ideas Thread: None . Will that field be used? Can users provide a list of Suggestions threads that are germane to an existing Roadmap item and have those Suggestions added for consideration? 

there are many older folks such as myself who don't give two craps about social media. Roll20 forum should be the first main priority and announcement before making announcement elsewhere. Too many times, I've seen roll20 team make announcement points on Reddit and then 2-3 days later, on this forum. 

First, I do want to say thank you for the roadmap, even limited as it is, it's nice to see the short-term view of what's coming. Where I'm disappointed is that to me, a roadmap is a plan for the future.  And what isn't here is what's intended / expected / hoped for over the next year (or even six months).  We got a bit of that back when jumpgate and the 2024 sheet were kicking off, and I'd like to see something more strategic now in the same vein. There are lots of requested featues in the Suggestions & Ideas forum with hundreds of votes.  But there's no way to see which (if any) of these are under consideration, or if so for when. And I share the frustration of others that Demiplane and Dungeon Scrawl are taking resouces, although I do understand you need to appeal to a broader base of users and pull in more, and map-making in particular has always been a lack (I happen to use third party tools, but not everyone wants to do that).  Still, saying they have separate teams doesn't actually address the issue since a team is a variable-sized object.  We all know money is a finite resource, and the number of items on those other lists suggests that's where your current priorities are. Oh, and like others, I value the community forums for announcements.  I've been surprised more than once by randomly finding out about a new feature (weeks after it launched) because someone did a youtube video and it popped into my feed.  That's not good communications.

Can we get the "Jira Product Discovery" logo to stay put and not jump around like it is having seizures?  Makes it nauseating to try to read the rest of the page. -Adam

Ditto. :) This user forum is a lot easier to follow than the Roll20 and r/Roll20 Discord servers. Facebook is a joke. I tried using "X" for a bit but decided that the noise drowned out any benefit. I looked at the some of the other social media platforms too but decided they're not for me. Novercalis said: there are many older folks such as myself who don't give two craps about social media. Roll20 forum should be the first main priority and announcement before making announcement elsewhere. Too many times, I've seen roll20 team make announcement points on Reddit and then 2-3 days later, on this forum. 

I am an older DM/Player, (septuagenarian), and I agree with Rick A. and Novercalis. I think that there should be a feed here that is first to release any breaking news.  

Hultz (Keeper of Secrets) said: I am an older DM/Player, (septuagenarian), and I agree with Rick A. and Novercalis. I think that there should be a feed here that is first to release any breaking news.   I too am an older player but a former computer programmer and "tech savvy" (sort of). But, I find the information on the Discord server to be a muddle of information, badly organized. These forums organize the conversation in a much better way, as far as I'm concerned, that is easier to follow and easier to comment on. While I'm here, I'd like to ask for something to be added to the roadmap: better resource management.  I have a lot of add-ons. I have a lot of maps. I have a lot of tokens. I have a lot of just about everything... but when I need to find something specific, I spend HOURS and sometimes DAYS trying to find what I'm looking for because the search functionality, well, sucks. Trying to find anything specific requires tediously going through everything I own, item by item, to find what I'm looking for. And, even then, I sometimes don't find it even though I know I have it *somewhere* in the mess of things I own on Roll20 because I just lose my place or my focus and just plain miss it. There really needs to be a better way of doing this, better search functionality, better organization, or what-have-you. I waste FAR too much time searching for what I need. That's my $.02.

Saul J. said: I too am an older player but a former computer programmer and "tech savvy" (sort of). But, I find the information on the Discord server to be a muddle of information, badly organized. These forums organize the conversation in a much better way, as far as I'm concerned, that is easier to follow and easier to comment on. I totally agree. I'm not a heavy Discord user, largely because I find the organization to be very difficult - threads/chats overlap and intertwine and its very hard for me to follow discussions. I much prefer single threaded discussions on the Roll20 forums or Reddit. I also strongly like how Reddit uses voting to highlight or minimize comments that are viewed by the community as helpful or not.  The huge downside to Roll20 forums is the terrible search functionality. I understand that the forums are built on code that is well over 15 years old at this point, but I would be so happy if the current Forums could be archived and brand new ones implemented. Reddit search is much better, and Discord has the best search capabilities, so there's always pros and cons for each avenue.  Saul J.  said: While I'm here, I'd like to ask for something to be added to the roadmap: better resource management.  I have a lot of add-ons. I have a lot of maps. I have a lot of tokens. I have a lot of just about everything... but when I need to find something specific, I spend HOURS and sometimes DAYS trying to find what I'm looking for because the search functionality, well, sucks. Trying to find anything specific requires tediously going through everything I own, item by item, to find what I'm looking for. And, even then, I sometimes don't find it even though I know I have it *somewhere* in the mess of things I own on Roll20 because I just lose my place or my focus and just plain miss it. There really needs to be a better way of doing this, better search functionality, better organization, or what-have-you. I waste FAR too much time searching for what I need. That's my $.02. Make it $0.04! I totally agree with this also!  In addition to being difficult to find, sometimes even when I find an asset, if I'm looking for something within the adventure, trying to read and search through Journal entries to find a specific piece of information is totally impossible.

$0.06.

I'll see that $0.06 and raise $0.19 to make it an even two bits ($0.25)

This roadmap is so cool!! Thanks for being so public, Also as a returning roll20 GM , it was a great way to see what i've missed.  also MAP PINS!!! Thank you so much for Map Pins

There is a lot of nice features coming up, and a lot will be a great addition to gameplay. But what about the things that exist already? On the Roll20 community server I see regular complaints about handling the art library and compendium resources. I have a hundred addons, they are a mess and I have no idea what most of them contain, because the only way to find that out is to create a game and add that single addon to it. After a few years of regular play, the content accumulates, and as a records manager by trade it hurts my heart to have to make a search in the art library (which is very inaccurate and at times useless) or do guessing games with the addons. I feel Roll20 is on the common trail of "new and shiny" and forgetting about the older things as soon as they work passably, while the problems are piling up behind them. As much as I love new and shiny, what I enjoy more is a good basis for accessing the content that I have put dollars and hours into accumulating.

I’m sorry to see so much of the road map is dedicated to this Demiplane integration. It’s been a huge negative to my Roll20 experience.

The functionality on the Suggestions forum proves that Roll20 could implement forum Search Results sorted by date (Most Recent). Just doing that 1 feature would make Searching more usable on the current Forums. Jarren said: The huge downside to Roll20 forums is the terrible search functionality.

I have more luck using Google and searching for "Roll20 <whatever I'm looking for>" Gold said: The functionality on the Suggestions forum proves that Roll20 could implement forum Search Results sorted by date (Most Recent). Just doing that 1 feature would make Searching more usable on the current Forums. Jarren said: The huge downside to Roll20 forums is the terrible search functionality.

I would much rather see heavier mod support than Demiplane. As a Homebrew DM, I feel like I'm constantly getting shuffled back into a marketplace to buy digital versions of books I've already paid $70+ for. I want more functionality, not more markets. 

Jayme said: Thanks so much for the candid discussion happening in the thread. I'd like to dig a little deeper and hear more from those of you who are specifically mentioning having difficulty managing Marketplace Content (tokens, maps, adventures, etc.). We have a roadmap item in discussion to improve tools for managing uploaded and purchased assets in-VTT, and it would help the team that is conducting research to hear more about your needs.  Are you specifically asking for the right-hand sidebar Search to be rebuilt? (on the Art Library tab and Journal) Do you need help managing assets elsewhere? The more you can share, the easier time I'll have bringing it to the team. I really appreciate it!  For me, being able to organize and search both the art library and the journal more easily would be a godsend. I've created user-defined folders under my art library tab, but moving items between folders is cumbersome due to the inability to open more than one folder at a time in a separate window. If I have an image in a folder near either the top or bottom of the library it is frustrating trying to drag or copy it to a place at the opposite end. The same for the journal tab: I've create folders to organize my journal, but these folders cannot be popped out into their own windows like the art library, and dragging handouts or character sheets between folders is even more cumbersome when the list of folders is long. I've used the trick of temporarily moving the target folder closer to the file that I want to move, but even that is  still more cumbersome than it has to be. In both the art library and journal, the search function is very picky: it often requires whole words, is particular about spelling, and in the case of the art library appears to rely on tags more than names. Some publishers of Marketplace content aren't very good at using tags; I'll search for "chest" and get dozens of results that are not even close to being "chests". When searching in the art library, if their are multiple instances of an image (due to multiple uploads or multiple copies stored in different folders) the search results come up with multiple instances of the same item but does not tell you what folder they are in. When searching in the journal, I'll get results like what is shown in the following image: I searched for "wand" and got a list of folders. In this example there is one handout called "Wand of Secrets". Guess which folder it's in? In the seven folders presented in the search results there is one instance of that handout, but I have to open each folder presented in order to find it; it does not appear in any of the other folders that appear in the search results.

Jayme said: I'd really like to better understand your frustrations and any specific feedback you have, re: solutions for your issue. Please confirm: your organizational needs lie outside of the VTT, managing your owned marketplace content, correct? Some questions:  Is the My Marketplace Items page the place you're managing your Addons now? Are there any other places you do this work? The Game Details page, etc.?  Do the Marketplace listings themselves contain the information you need? What data is most important for you to see at a glance?  Anything you can share will help me frame the issue and get it in front of the right eyes. Thank you!    I'm not Simira, but I'd like to reply to this: Addons do not appear in My Marketplace Items . At least not for me. It would be great is there was an option to not display individual art packs in the Art Library. Over time I've picked up a many art packs that I no longer use and I'd rather not have them appear in my art library list, but the only option available to not show them is to apply for a refund through the Marketplace. I don't want to get rid of these art packs; I just want to selectively suppress their showing up in the art library tab. Maybe make them selectable through Game Settings like the Compendiums currently are?

Big improvements are welcome (love map pins) but it’d also be nice if roll20 could slip in some quick wins/low hanging fruits from the suggestions forums from time to time, even if they don’t have hundreds of votes.  Not to underestimate complexity as I’m not a coder, but some of the suggestions  sound simple enough and could possibly be developed, tested and deployed in a matter of days and be immediately useful to a lot of users. i’m slowly running out of votes as so very few suggestions get implemented, and we start with a lot of votes ;) 

Well, just for one example of the search problem: with the Art Library you can filter (on types of things) with a pulldown and you can deselect result categories you don't want to see (like "From the Web") from the results, but you really only have text keyword searches with and/or/exclude functionality.  You can't search upload (or purchase) date range, for example.  Or resource type (jpg vs png). or size (smaller token graphics vs larger maps). And the "token" criteria isn't really matching tokens (not a suprise, a token is just a small graphic).  But if I search for "alchemist" I get a bunch of multi-hundred-K jpeg maps of an alchemists house I have in my library (which are about 3500x3500 pixels), when I wanted something to represent the individual (it also found a jpeg screen-grab of an excel sheet from the "alchemist" adventure; it was clearly just matching on "keyword plus file type"). I realize that's a difficult problem: by your own partner's guidelines, a token can be 560x560 pixels, which is over half a megabyte in PNG, and many maps are smaller than that (in jpg with compression and low detail). And I know players who use JPEGs for tokens (I discourage it, but if it's what they want for an image I let them) so you can't just say "and only PNG". But it's still confusing to have a search criteria labelled "token" that finds lots of things that aren't tokens.  Maybe seach by pixel count isn't practical, but I'll throw it out as an idea in case it is.

Jayme said: Jarren said: Make it $0.04! I totally agree with this also!&nbsp; In addition to being difficult to find, sometimes even when I find an asset, if I'm looking for something within the adventure, trying to read and search through Journal entries to find a specific piece of information is totally impossible. Thanks so much for the candid discussion happening in the thread. I'd like to dig a little deeper and hear more from those of you who are specifically mentioning having difficulty managing Marketplace Content (tokens, maps, adventures, etc.). We have a roadmap item in discussion to improve tools for managing uploaded and purchased assets in-VTT, and it would help the team that is conducting research to hear more about your needs.&nbsp; Are you specifically asking for the right-hand sidebar Search to be rebuilt? (on the Art Library tab and Journal) Do you need help managing assets elsewhere? The more you can share, the easier time I'll have bringing it to the team. I really appreciate it!&nbsp; Marketplace My Items On the My Items page ( <a href="https://marketplace.roll20.net/myitems" rel="nofollow">https://marketplace.roll20.net/myitems</a> ) if I want to look through and see what assets I have, there are two ways to filter: The first is the 'Type' dropdown on the right; the second is by typing in the 'Filter by Title..." field.&nbsp; I have assets for several different game systems. If I am trying to prep a D&amp;D 5E game, I have to wade through all of the different systems to find just D&amp;D 5E stuff, because there's no filter by game system or character sheet, even though things like a Compendium Expansion is only going to apply to a single game.&nbsp; I fully recognize that not all asset types are tied to a specific game system, such as Token Sets or Token Marker Sets, but it would be helpful to have tags for game systems and an 'Uncategorized' or 'System Agnostic' tag for assets that aren't connected to a specific game system. I also have no idea how the items are sorted. It seems totally random. It's not alphabetical by title/name, it's not by date, or in any kind of order that makes some logical sense when I have to scroll through if I'm looking for a particular item.&nbsp; Using a module to create a new game Now I go to create a new game and decide that I want to use a module. I have a list of several owned modules, but again no way to filter them by Game System, or to search through them by name. They are apparently filtered by character sheet - if I select a character sheet first, then the list of modules on the right changes based on which modules work with that character sheet. But if I select a game that doesn't have any owned adventures, or any marketplace modules, then the selections on the right side take a long time to load, before finally just having everything displayed.&nbsp; I currently own The Essentials Kit, which has one Module for Dragon of Icespire Peak. I cannot get that to load in the "Your Adventures" list regardless of which character sheet I select. The only way I can find to use this module is by going to my Marketplace Items and clicking on the 'Play' button from the module itself.&nbsp; If I am curious about possibly getting something from the Marketplace, there's a small divider between my owned modules and the Marketplace items that I don't currently have, but that are available for purchase. There's no visual indicator if I scroll down quickly that I am now in a 'purchase' section, and there is no indication of what Game System each module is built for.&nbsp; Adding an Addon to an existing game Now let's say that I have a game that is already created and I want to add an Addon to it. Again, there is no filter other than a search bar, which means I have to look through a dropdown that includes all Addons I own, and many of them are for different game systems and character sheets.&nbsp; Before adding and Addon to a game, there is no way to know what the Addon contains, so the safest thing to do is create a blank game, add the Addon, and see what it includes, before deciding whether I want to add it to my main game. It's an extra step that is frustrating. So at one point I added all of the Reserve items I had received into a game so that I could look through them to see what I might want to, but when I opened the Journal, it was a complete mess. Once I add an Addon to a game, it is completely dependent on the Creator for how they organized those assets in the Journal and Page tab.&nbsp;&nbsp;I couldn't tell what came from which Addon. So I deleted the game and I'm now in the process of adding each Addon individually, then manually sorting them in the Journal and Page tab. Macros and Rollable Tables do not have any folder capability, so Macros are just sorted alphabetically, and Rollable Tables are ordered by when they were added. Journal Handout frustration As far as the Journal entries themselves, especially Handouts, I absolutely hate reading through them. Each handout opens in a separate window - sometimes this is preferred behavior; sometimes not. Almost always I would prefer to have a single window with buttons to move backwards and forwards through handout content, instead of hyperlinks. If I want to search through an adventure handout, I have to pop it out into a new window.&nbsp; I have switched to using Obsidian for my GM prep and game/adventure content. I was previously using OneNote, which was better for organization and reading through than Roll20, but was missing a lot of features that I want (like a simple spellchecking capability, and the search functionality is terrible, but still better than natively in Roll20). So if I want to take content from a Roll20 Handout and copy it into OneNote or Obsidian, it means I have to open each handout individually, click on the Edit button, click into the Description &amp; Notes field, select all, copy, then paste it into the other program. I do that because it is so much easier &nbsp;to read through adventure content than by using handouts in Roll20.&nbsp; Rick A. said: For me, being able to organize and search both the art library and the journal more easily would be a godsend. Everything that Rick A. said in the rest of his post is 100% spot on. The search functionality doesn't work. I did a search for 'Kobold' and other than the items that had 'Kobold' in the name, I couldn't figure out why other items were still appearing in the Journal. Every folder still appears, even if there is nothing in the folder with 'Kobold' in the name. And some folders had handouts that didn't have 'Kobold' anywhere in the name or in the content of the Handout. Some folders still appeared, but were empty, but other folders didn't appear at all. It seems totally random to me.&nbsp; I probably have more feedback, but I think that's a pretty good starting place for now, because I was just trying to some of this yesterday.&nbsp;