Spring Update: Meh

More Random Dice Roller: Yawn. It's plenty random and updating it will do absolutely nothing for the people who think it isn't. The only thing this will accomplish is unleashing a bunch of "it's still not random" threads from people who rolled two 1's in a row. Character Sheets: I've got no need for it, but I can see how it might be handy. My complaint is that this is a big, major change that is going to eat up lots and lots of developer time when I'd rather see that time spent fixing all of the little annoying things that are in need of fixing (eg: sorting the token toolbar, changing a token's picture, providing an erase tool). I'll cross my fingers for the Fall update (and try to keep any more whiny posts to myself).

There won't be an eraser. The tools are VECTOR BASED. Not RASTER BASED.

I agree with you about the dice roller; pseudo-random is plenty random enough, this is overkill. I hope it doesn't cost them much money to access this 'quantum' device! And yes, as you say, most people don't truly understand probability and randomness and will continue to complain, never understanding that looking non-random is a sign of true randomness... NEVER rolling eight "1"s in a row would mean it's not random at all! However, the character sheets thing has the potential to be a game changer, much like the Token Actions ability was. I just wish I knew more about what, exactly, it is they're planning to do! I have several projects, one major, a few minor, and a couple just-games, all on hold or at various levels of stasis, due to the fact that I'll most likely have to either redo from scratch or make massively major changes to them when this comes out. For example, I have a setup with literally 100 different critters in it, all programmed with macros and everything, with the Pathfinder rule set... and I'm not doing a damn thing with it, because as soon as this upgrade happens I know, I just know, that it's all going to be obsolete and I'm gonna have to start over! I've also got something even more ambitious on hold, for the same reason, and the various games I'm either hosting or playing in... yep, down to minimal changes, if any at all, to character sheets because really, why bother fixing something that's about to break anyway? And yes, there are other 'minor' fixes they could make, but hey... all in good time, right? Keep up the good work Roll20, I'll wait! -Phnord

You could easily write an eraser tool for vector geometry, if the vectors are linear, just split'em and delete at the eraser intersection point, bezier you just need to reinterp them at the split point or just sample them down to linear vectors and treat them as so, and things like circles/elipse etc the same thing convert down to bezier or sample down to linear vectors. It is actually pretty trivial. I also wish they focused on other things besides the random dice which has little affect on game play. The character sheet sounds nice, but there are a lot of management tools that are needed also. My list would have been 1. Tokens need an attribute or some sort of generic property page. Going through the GM notes is painful hack right now and pretty much just one way ( writing to the GMNotes is problematic unless you know all the control codes plus other stuff tends to be there also ). 2. Character/NPC/MOBs/Handout management, my campaign has 6 characters, 50 or so mobs and few dozen NPCs and a bunches of handouts. Finding and keeping of track of them is a pain. Being able to put them in some sort of folder system is a must, Right now using name prefixes to sort them is a hack. 3. The ruler desperately needs to be fixed. 4. More API control of the UI. ie being able to bring up a character sheet or handout programmatically then I could do my own management. Right now I have tokens to control other tokens/objects/handout but have to use the chat to spew out information versus just bring up the sheet I want.

Regarding number two... USE TAGS. No folders.

Not a big fan of tags unless you can edit them in mass which you cannot. There are 2 other GMs creating content plus the players tweaking their own character sheets I can almost guarantee no one is going to use constant tags even if I tell them too. Folders are proactive in that you are forced to pick from a limited list, tags are not enforced and you can set them to whatever you want.

I completely understand, you guys need to make decisions based on what you think is best for your product. Just being greedy and putting in my 2 cents to on things that would make my campaign run easier :)

Maybe focusing on dice rolls is overkill, maybe not. Maybe having that cool little atom symbol next to my rolls makes me feel like a superhero, don't judge me. But the fact that there is forward progress is anything is a plus. I decided to start dropping some skrilla on Roll20 because I saw people that were proactive and were making the product better. maybe this update doesn't scratch your personal itch, but supporting this update ensures a new one in a few months and maybe that one will scratch you. I'm on the Dev Team's Team.

Im hoping the new character sheets are useable for my Star Wars EotE game that I want to run that would deff get me hyped!

Nolan T. J. said: First, for what it's worth... we are really pushing the moderation of passive aggressive nonsense on the boards these days. So, for future thought, something like "Who Else Is NOT Excited About the Spring Update" would be much more appropriate a criticism. "Meh" can and will get folks banned. ----------------------------------- I like the update, especially when I read the bit about moving to more stable servers. I play with someone from Sweden over roll20 regularily, for example, and he at times has a terrible connection lag that seems to spike at random. This gives me hope that we might have a few less spikes and more fluid gameplay. I'm largely indifferent about the RNG. It seems random enough for me personally, but the quest for "the truly random dice" is as old as tabletop gaming, so I can see the allure to seriously try for it. Personally speaking, what I would love to see is a more customisable interface that lets me split dice rolls and text in two chat streams, or more, if I'm DMing and the party has split. But it's not essential to me. It's currently functional enough for me to play, and play well, on, so anything beyond that, I view as a neat extra to an already working concept. Cheers, Llama

Nolan T. J. said: Kim H. said: Maybe focusing on dice rolls is overkill, maybe not. Maybe having that cool little atom symbol next to my rolls makes me feel like a superhero, don't judge me. But the fact that there is forward progress is anything is a plus. I decided to start dropping some skrilla on Roll20 because I saw people that were proactive and were making the product better. maybe this update doesn't scratch your personal itch, but supporting this update ensures a new one in a few months and maybe that one will scratch you. I'm on the Dev Team's Team. I'd say there aren't teams, though... As our goal is to create product worth purchasing, as opposed to hypothetical "future product you're funding development for," there's a lot of work to be done in bettering that product. It's awesome how many people think we're "there" already, but we certainly have an interest in hearing from those who think differently... And don't consider those folks on an opposing team. Yeah, it was a joke. Team's Team. See? A joke. Remind me next time not to write a post supporting you. Jeez.

I did not know about the server thing. I was really excited about the modifiable character sheets, but now that I think about the server thing...it should be much nicer. I am totally not on the Dev Team's Team though, since you are, so I should be on the Non-Dev team's Team, to support that team. Cause teams.

Peter W. said: You could easily write an eraser tool for vector geometry, if the vectors are linear, just split'em and delete at the eraser intersection point, bezier you just need to reinterp them at the split point or just sample them down to linear vectors and treat them as so, and things like circles/elipse etc the same thing convert down to bezier or sample down to linear vectors. It is actually pretty trivial. Polylines/polygons and squares/rectangles are linear paths. Circles/ovals and freehand drawings are Bézier curves. I have considered writing an eraser script in the past, but I never got around to it.

Jake M. said: I am totally not on the Dev Team's Team though, since you are, so I should be on the Non-Dev team's Team, to support that team. Cause teams. Well now you've gone and made a mockery of the team theme. Team Redeem The Team Theme.

The quantum rolls thing is kind of silly from a RNG/mathematical perspective, but it makes sense from a business perspective, since, as pointed out, there are inevitably tons of complaints about any RNG solution whenever people notice streaks/etc. Humans are very good at superimposing patterns on random noise, and psychologically we're also good at rationalizing things. So although it will never make a practical difference in any game run on this site (I dare say you could use a fixed cyclic table of 500 rolls of a d1800, which evenly divides into the common dice types, and it'd be basically indistinguishable by human players without the aid of automated statistical tests), there will be a lot of people who deeply believe that it does make a difference, and will feel good about Roll20 and the devs as a result. That means more funding for Roll20 in general, which does benefit everyone in the long run in less marketable directions like server quality and longer sustainability of the project. So yeah, I would have much rather seen a number of other things than 'quantum rolls', but considering that it probably wasn't too much time compared to the character sheet stuff to find an online entropy provider, figure out their API, shoot off an email saying 'hey, is it okay if we do this?', and put it into Roll20, its a reasonable thing to have chosen to do. Character sheets though, thats just pure gold. Been waiting for that for awhile now.

Nicholas G. said: So yeah, I would have much rather seen a number of other things than 'quantum rolls', but considering that it probably wasn't too much time compared to the character sheet stuff to find an online entropy provider, figure out their API, shoot off an email saying 'hey, is it okay if we do this?', and put it into Roll20, its a reasonable thing to have chosen to do. Most entropy providers I know of either throttle your requests/time, requires fees, or require fees when you exceed some quota/time, so it probably wasn't as simple as sending an email. That said, given a provider and a commitment to pay the provider's fees, the API for querying the provider is usually pretty simple.

thread equals funny. When I read it I thought it was an april fools joke about boilerplate gamer complaints. That exact same "dev time" post exists on every forum ever.

I look forward to the character sheets myself, and hope that the "bank" idea comes to fruition, ultimately, we could have "certified" characters than can travel to other GM's games and return to tell of their glorious deeds. "just step into the blue phone booth there and write if you find work..."

I actually love current system it is magically give me better numbers when i roleplay and give me 1s when i do not. I am afraid new system will not. Can we get option to select old system? Or maybe i should stop smoking that stuff.

Brian said: Nicholas G. said: So yeah, I would have much rather seen a number of other things than 'quantum rolls', but considering that it probably wasn't too much time compared to the character sheet stuff to find an online entropy provider, figure out their API, shoot off an email saying 'hey, is it okay if we do this?', and put it into Roll20, its a reasonable thing to have chosen to do. Most entropy providers I know of either throttle your requests/time, requires fees, or require fees when you exceed some quota/time, so it probably wasn't as simple as sending an email. That said, given a provider and a commitment to pay the provider's fees, the API for querying the provider is usually pretty simple. E-mail still likely happened in order to try and get a quote to determine if it was fiscally feasible. Anywho, looking forward to the character sheets. Goldarface said: Im hoping the new character sheets are useable for my Star Wars EotE game that I want to run that would deff get me hyped! And since the sheets will have to be built from the ground up using HTML and CSS, yes they will be, provided you, or someone you know, knows how to use html/css or an IDE; such as netbeans, or frontpage, in order to make one.

Dave W. said: And since the sheets will have to be built from the ground up using HTML and CSS, yes they will be, provided you, or someone you know, knows how to use html/css or an IDE; such as netbeans, or frontpage, in order to make one. There are a bunch of Mentors making character sheet templates right now on the development server. =) Nobody's working on SW EotE at the moment, although there is a SW Saga project.