In case anyone missed it, there was a Roundtable earlier today. I'm posting my notes from watching for quick reference, but please don't take my interpretation as what was said. You can watch the video yourself here - <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/videos/474609461" rel="nofollow">https://www.twitch.tv/videos/474609461</a> These are very rough notes, taken during the live stream, so my apologies for any mistakes/misinterpretations in advance. As always, the best source is to watch for yourself. People presenting: Soraya (Director of Communications), Trivia (Director of Licensing), Eric (Business Analyst), Stephanie (Scrum Master) Advanced Fog of War - Major things not working as expected since the previous update. They are working on a broad revision to the system to bring it more in line with dynamic lighting - back to the drawing board. This will take a little while because it is a major overhaul. They want to keep us updated, but it is in prototype stage right now so not much to show at the moment. Big focus, but will take a while. They have hired a new graphics programmer to help with that effort. Next marketplace feature is Wishlist. Ability for more than 1 wishlist. Ability to see other people’s wishlist, such as your GM. Orr Group Industry Report: Significant Changes, old version based on what users were saying was happening (basically a user survey). New report from scratch, includes original data but also Character Sheet usage. Captures about 85-86% of all games. Still need to find ways to capture custom sheets, and they are also looking at additional features for the report, such as HOW people are playing (what features they use from the Roll20 site like music, dynamic lighting, etc.). Also trying to solve chicken/egg question (what games do people play, and how much is it impacted by official Roll20 support and products such as 5e DND and Pathfinder) of support of games, so they can track usage based on release of new product, official licenses, etc. New Help Desk - roll20.net/help - All policies in one place, feature info from Wiki moving over (not complete), easily searched, support tickets. Roll20 Con Oct 5-6 - more info in September. Chat Question: Pathfinder 2e questions: Major questions will be handled later in the roundtable, due to them being part of planned questions. Discussion about how much fun the devs are having in their 2e games. Matchmaking low, not a lot of games searching. Filter between 1e and 2e is available since last tuesday for matchmaking. Chat Question: 3D Dice miss-match to displayed roll - they don’t have the correct developer on to answer this, Trivia says the system has to roll all the dice even when the roll template presents different info. Math and presentation are tied together, not seperate like in a casino game. Layer Up update? They are working to improve the architecture underneath this process, so they do not have a release date for this update (also effects Fog of War and other graphic components). This is a major architecture update instead of a patch. Legality of using marketplace content to run paid games on Roll20? Paid GM on Roll20, it works the same as if you paid someone in real life. If you paid someone in real life and went to their house to play the game, it isn’t distribution to use their minis and maps and so forth - that is not distribution. And Roll20 doesn’t consider that distribution on their platform. Blades in the Dark Character Sheet - maintained by creator of game, and it was re-classified because it was under community created instead of By Publisher (publisher supported sheet). If you are playing it, you just need to re-add the sheet to your game. This is technically an upgrade for the sheet. Pathfinder 2e upcoming release support? Can’t guarantee every release because there are a LOT that are fast and regular, every month multiple releases. They will do their best to keep up with the releases that will help the most people. Chat question: Search function of marketplace doesn’t use assets name? It does, it just uses pack names more highly weighted. This is new functionality and they will keep tweaking it in. First three tags on an individual item are the only tags used in the search, so if you are a creator with lots of tags contact Roll20. Seemed like there was more info being discussed in the chat with Drespar, and that devs will take a look at this more. Chat question: User ratings in marketplace for verified purchasers? I nternal discussion, worried about abuse, but they do understand people would like reviews of packs and products. Starfinder/Pathfinder 2e Charactermancer when? Starfinder delayed due to personnel issues, Cassie is hiring for developers to add more resources to the sheet team. Should come out this year. PF2 should be early 2020. Charactermancer are intense builds with lots of code, so take a lot of time/effort to create. Drag & Drop coming before charactermancer. Why is development so slow? How do you plan to keep up with competing software at this rate? They push updates at least once a week, new product releases are very regular, it has been 8 months in 2019. In that time they have released: animations, AFoW revision (granted it had issues, but was a major update), Jukebox functionality, Marketplace Update (and behind the scenes infrastructure upgrades to support it), Token Bars, Player Avatars, Revised Chat Archive, sendping API update, Paizo Account Sync. Also behind the scenes updates: payment system updates, Marketplace Creator submission process, Marketplace Redemption Codes. We stay competitive by listening to our users, we are agile (always becoming more so), many things start as bug fix and then grow into bigger concerns due to user feedback, and are constantly developing to respond to both user needs and market needs. QA is now in place, not always the case, and they are hiring a second QA engineer. They are a platform, so can’t keep up with all character sheets. Development may take longer to implement a feature, but that isn’t because they aren’t aware, but more about technical challenges with the platform. The question should really be how do competing software intend to keep up with Roll20? There is a lot behind the scenes of rehashing behind the scenes that is foundational. It may not seem like much to users, but it is huge for the developers.Mobile App is being rewritten, lots of work, but it is still in the rebuilding foundational stages so nothing interesting to see. Reworking the foundation is important to growth in the future. How many employees does Roll20 have? 30-31 and growing. Actively hiring and recruiting for several positions, and will keep growing into the future. Timeline/ETA to fix animation tokens to freeze when imgsrc set by api? In backlog of bug reports to fix. They are also looking to understand better ways for bugs to be reported. API suggestions. Frustration about threshold - API discussion now has a much lower threshold on the forum. Special tag for Character Sheet and API suggestions so they don’t auto close. Return of the Runelords adventure path 2nd part (1e)? They doubled the production team, 4 new people. Return 2 and 3 will be out this year, 4-6 in 2020. One Grung Above and Tortle Package - no because they are DMs Guild, and those relationships are complicated SCAG and Eberron? Eberron is day 1. SCAG, OotA, DMs Guide, they want to get out as soon as possible, but no specific date. AoE systems and spell templates built in? API and marketplace templates cover this need. Drawing tool improvements are on road map, but down the road. Any new RPG compendiums coming soon? Some cool stuff to be announced before end of the year, no official timelines or specific info. Music - old jukebox? Fanburst is gone, we put in search filters and upload capability for your own audio files, and we’ve done what we can for now. If you have specific ideas post to suggestion to forums. LFG tool has updates on road map, but not in next quarter. Age of Ashes PF 2e - first part released before end of year. What is the toughest part of maintaining the site and why? Keeping up with changing demands of users, shear amount of users ratio to amount of employees, scaling to please 4 million+ users, lots of legacy systems that have to be updated to scale, we don’t have enough time to play games with our co-workers. Keeping communities and users up to date has also been a challenge. Licensing has limited resources and would love to work with all publishers, but have to prioritize. Chat questions: Custom compendium? Still internal discussions due to copyright and content. They want to do it for homebrew, but have to solve the bigger issues. Dragon of Icespire Peak after Target exclusivity - September 3 Jukebox - any copyright issues thus far? None so far with music companies. They built it out in collaboration with their lawyers, and they have not had complaints - they feel confident in their solution. Prices different on Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds - every platform sets its own prices, Roll20 feels their prices reflect the value of time and value put in to creating the products General and Game specific forums - Roll20 forums are focused on the platform, organize the Roll20 game on the forum, but if you want to talk about a specific game system use the publisher forum or other online place. Pets - Eric has a dog, has to wake it up. User question: Questions from devs for users? what do you want, and put it in the suggestions forum! Eric brings his adorable dog (timecode 1 hr 05 min) Plan to do roundtables every other month or so. Might shift format in future roundtables.
