Savage Worlds Ruleset, tokens and grid

[phantomwhale]

Hardly doing ALL the fixes ! Just the easy ones, or ones that annoy me too much (of which there are very few, I might add).

Most of the real money around modules and rulesets is going to the publishers anyway to pay for the rights to the intellectual property of the original game, the developer money is peanuts compared to any real coding work. So I think of the ongoing development more in the spirit of open source where developers can look to patch issues themselves and get them put into the next ruleset version.

That said, it's not entirely clear to me who is doing development on the Savage Worlds rules (I see the name ASilva, but can't find him on the FG Forums). Anyone know ? Would be good to know who to flag potential patches like this one up to.

Especially as he's also the guy doing the Deadlands:Reloaded extension, which I hope gets a few interruptions to it as possible, as it's my #1 game right now !

[phloog]

Well, to clarify: you're doing the only fixes that I can see/use right now.

I guess I dislike too much reliance on the open/volunteer model, as applied to software that is purchased. For Maptool it's fine.

I understand that the developers are not full time, and are sort of doing this as they get time, and if other things get in the way then we don't get fixes. But it's not how I'd like it to work.

More importantly, when I look at something like this snap issue, I think that one flaw in their approach seems to be the full release strategy...it seems like someone who is actually working for / paid by the company could have posted what you posted, or actually posted a patch file fixing those 'easy' things first.

Instead it sounds like we've got at least two problems that aggravate each other - - the developer only gets to work on this in their spare time, and the developer/company isn't going to release until they have a full new version.

So there might be fifty little fixes that could get done and delivered quickly, but aren't getting implemented because of the hobbyist nature of the coding and the strategy of 'step function' releases.

I'd be happy if they DON'T release a new version of the ruleset, and just provide a load of patches for the one we have. Or have a page where you can download at your own risk the modules/bits that they think are fixed (recognizing that many may have interfaces/dependencies, of course)

[ddavison]

We very much depend upon the community to improve the rulesets, add extensions and tell us what is most important for them. One of the other two owners and I were once just members of the community as well before we purchased the company from the original developers. These original developers only did the core application and not the rulesets at all. We acquired the rulesets because Digital Adventures was looking to move on to other projects and offered to sell it to us. While I hope to grow the add-on content side of the business, it has traditionally amounted to only around 2% of revenue for the company. It has been growing substantially since the change in owners and since we have been actively pursuing relationships with new publishers, but it is still a small percentage.

We are nearing 18K users now, but once the product is purchased those customers don't continue to support the business unless they buy additional add-ons -- which is one key reason for constantly releasing new products. It is not like World of Warcraft or even DDI where everyone is paying a monthly subscription fee which pays to support full-time developers. The community is overwhelming against any sort of subscription fee, so we have to do the best we can with the resources we have. For me, that means I will try to continually bring in talented people from the community who realize that most of this is a labor of love. Thankfully we DO have an amazing community here and it helps tremendously. I felt that was as a user and I feel that way still as an owner.

The next release of Savage Worlds will be a free upgrade or patch for existing users. The Deadlands extension will be a purchasable product. If you want to support the work done by various community people, then buying add-ons they release under contract with us will show them your support and get them at least a little return on their investment of time and effort. For those many contributors on the forums who do so completely of their own free will, please be sure to let them know that their work is appreciated.

[phantomwhale]

Thanks for covering the commerce side from a SmiteWorks perspective Doug.

I really do see the commercial aspect as a small necessary evil, given it is essentially an extension / recreation of existing licensed products, and I am very happy so many publishers can consented to be part of Fantasy Grounds. And I am much happier with buying more products rather than paying a subscription fee - micro payments are the way forward. As I get older, virtual gaming becomes more attractive to my social situation, so I love having a quality product to do it with to make up for all that is lost when you move away from face-to-face gaming.

Anyway, slightly back on the focus of this thread, I was wondering what the "best" approach for community ruleset patches was ? For instance, with this simple fix, I would like it to be considered for the next "official" SW ruleset. This is currently owned by SmiteWorks, and equally has a 3rd party developer registered as the current steward for it's development.

So ideally, I guess these patches should be sent to the development steward for consideration - in this case, this is ASilva, who I cannot find any contact details for. So maybe some sort of mailbox could be setup by SmiteWorks to capture patch requests and forward them to the appropriate developer(s) ? Even with an auto-reply to say the suggestion has been forwarded and to remind users that support requests should still be posted in the forums.

Equally it would be good for the bleeding edge users to be able to co-ordinate on unofficial patches between releases. Right now, I see efforts done as potentially "lost" as there is no formal way of sharing them with the community. Maybe this needs to be a community driven affair, but not sure how best to proceed. A thread for code patches might be good, but dissolve into chatter most likely. A section on the FGWiki could work ? Or hosting the ruleset in an online VCS like google code ? (although not sure about security / legal implicaitons on this - guessing this might be an issue). Maybe the demand is low around this usage, but equally it might be low because co-ordinated collaboration is non-trivial at the moment ?

Maybe something has already been setup around these areas, and I was not aware (I've been absent from the FG community for a while). Or maybe people have some good ideas around this. In any case, I am asking in a larger context to see if any future bugfixes might find a home in more than 2-3 people's installations. If so, I think I as a developer would be more encouraged to look into them.

Ah, was just coming back for a simple contact detail, and ended up rambling again. Apologies

[phloog]

Well, while I don't have your sales data by user, I have to believe that I've supported FG and its partners as much or more than most, having bought the license, the SW ruleset, and now all those Daring Tales conversions. Based on your comments, I have to believe I'm one of the more profitable customers so far.

Until the issues with SW were noted, I was planning on getting the monster license, but was forced to look at other products to support the mapping side and now that purchase is in doubt as I'm making do with other things.

Maybe your business model doesn't support it, but I do think that one of the issues seems to be the full release versus small patch strategy. One of my issues was resolved essentially by opening a file and hitting my Delete key about ten times. Without the intervention of undead aquatic mammals, I would still be waiting for the full release to fix this.

And of course now a bit of what may be blasphemy on this site --

Maybe the 'labor of love' thing has to go.

Maybe you have to be either a business that can deliver a high-quality product for a market-determined price and survive, or you have to be a community effort similar to Maptools where everyone pitches in and everything is free.

Note: I am NOT saying Maptools is superior to FG.

The point is it seems like a lot of bad practice starts to happen when you mix the two, in the same way that you have countless failed restaurants started just because "I really love to cook."

Customers pay good money for a product, but then because some large percent of the effort is "love-based" or volunteer, there's this pressure to not complain, despite having paid money for a product that isn't delivering all that they need.

People involved in the effort get defensive, because they ARE working for peanuts but still have to hear these complaints.

We're expected to be grateful that someone is nice enough to make what we paid for work.

It's sort of the worst of both worlds. I pay money and it doesn't work properly - to me it seems like my money was (partially) wasted and I complain. Developers in the community work for little or no compensation, and yet have to listen to us gripe, which isn't nice for them.

I don't gripe or get angry about Maptools, despite its many shortcomings, because I didn't pay for it. Once I pay ANYTHING for a product, I expect quality, and so while I think the community is great, I don't like relying on the charity and good will of others to make a product I bought work.

It's probably my fault LONG ago for not doing my research, because if I'd known that updates were going to be largely dependent on the kindness of strangers, I might not have bought in.

[kalmarjan]

Well, while I don't have your sales data by user, I have to believe that I've supported FG and its partners as much or more than most, having bought the license, the SW ruleset, and now all those Daring Tales conversions. Based on your comments, I have to believe I'm one of the more profitable customers so far.

I believe Doug said that there was 18K users, labeling yourself as "most profitable" is probably a misstatement.

Until the issues with SW were noted, I was planning on getting the monster license, but was forced to look at other products to support the mapping side and now that purchase is in doubt as I'm making do with other things.

Maybe your business model doesn't support it, but I do think that one of the issues seems to be the full release versus small patch strategy. One of my issues was resolved essentially by opening a file and hitting my Delete key about ten times. Without the intervention of undead aquatic mammals, I would still be waiting for the full release to fix this.

And of course now a bit of what may be blasphemy on this site --

Maybe the 'labor of love' thing has to go.

Honestly, if you want to talk about business, if there was not a labor of love, you would not have a ruleset. I am qualified to say this, because it was my labor of love that provided you with the SW, Iron Heroes, Castles and Crusades, Modern, Arcana Evolved rulesets for FG.

I say it is a labor of love, because when you factor in the hours that I put into the rulesets, you would get about 1$ an hour for what I spent. Try telling me that I should not do it out of love.

Maybe you have to be either a business that can deliver a high-quality product for a market-determined price and survive, or you have to be a community effort similar to Maptools where everyone pitches in and everything is free.

Note: I am NOT saying Maptools is superior to FG.

The point is it seems like a lot of bad practice starts to happen when you mix the two, in the same way that you have countless failed restaurants started just because "I really love to cook."

You are really comparing apples and oranges here:
1) Map Tools is a open source project. That means the code is OPEN and licensed for change by the community.

You also do not have "official" rulesets for Maptools, so that community is walking a fine line with the IP of the game companies products used to play.

An example of this is the Maptool framework for Savage Worlds. What is the legalality of that framework?

With FG, at least the system is licensed.

2) As for your restaurant analogy, as a Chef, I can tell you that your reasoning is flawed. Restaurants fail all the time because people don't understand that it is a business. Countless chefs fail because their egos don't lend well to the business side of conversion of their offering.

You have to love to cook, or you would be STUPID to be in my business at all. Trust me on that. 18-20 hour days makes one loopy, and I don't do it because I am phsyco, I do it because i LOVE THE BUSINESS!

Customers pay good money for a product, but then because some large percent of the effort is "love-based" or volunteer, there's this pressure to not complain, despite having paid money for a product that isn't delivering all that they need.

People involved in the effort get defensive, because they ARE working for peanuts but still have to hear these complaints.

We're expected to be grateful that someone is nice enough to make what we paid for work.

It's sort of the worst of both worlds. I pay money and it doesn't work properly - to me it seems like my money was (partially) wasted and I complain. Developers in the community work for little or no compensation, and yet have to listen to us gripe, which isn't nice for them.

Complaints are okay. I believe that they drive the product in a better direction. With that though, you NEED to understand that nothing will change overnight.

HOW you complain is another thing altogether. I have read various posts of yours that contribute nothing but critisim to the conversation. Saying things like, "such and such is broken" or "It's a waste of money", or "Klooge is better" do nothing to add to the development of a product.

I have said it before, and I will say it again. Today SW is a company that listens to thier client base. Yes, none of the rulesets are perfect. Yes, we are working towards a solution.

That is miles better than what used to happen around here. (Crickets chirping.)

I don't gripe or get angry about Maptools, despite its many shortcomings, because I didn't pay for it. Once I pay ANYTHING for a product, I expect quality, and so while I think the community is great, I don't like relying on the charity and good will of others to make a product I bought work.

It's probably my fault LONG ago for not doing my research, because if I'd known that updates were going to be largely dependent on the kindness of strangers, I might not have bought in.

I am sorry you came to this oppinion. It seems like you weighed it out a lot before making it.

To be true, there are a lot of products out there that don't work at first iteration. Games, software, 3D drawing programs, heck, even Photoshop and 3DS Max don't work properly the first time they came out. They are worth 10 times what you would pay for an ultimate license.

The thing is, they have communities just like this one. People who are passionate about the product, who want to see it improve. People who actually put the effort into making it better instead of bitching about how it is "broken".

You get what you put into Fantasy Grounds. Yes, it is not Map Tool, Klooge, iTabletop, Battlegrounds - it is better. (Okay, biased opinion there, but I have used them all. The dice just do something for me I guess.)

If you really want change, then CONTRIBUTE something to the conversation. You never know, you might be surpised at what comes out of it.

To the developers, and this community - hats off to all of you. I have been here since the beginning, and it is YOU all that make me stay.

Stay Savage!

[mac40k]

I'm a big fan of FG2. When I was researching tabletop emulators for online play, I was actually leaning towards Battlegrounds initially, but it was the community here that made me decide to go with FG2. While I appreciate all that the community does, I have to side with phloog when it comes to paid-for product. The SWEX ruleset isn't a fan-made or community ruleset like nWoD, Dark Heresy, or some others that are out there. I paid money for the product and I don't think it unreasonable to expect it to work. Even if someone smarter than I has figured out how to hack the ruleset to fix some of the problems, I shouldn't be expected to scour the forums to discover these fixes and then have to manually screw around with the ruleset myself to get it to work. For a fan or community created ruleset, that is fine. For a commercial product, it is not. Even if it is an easy fix. Especially if it is an easy fix, since the hard work of debugging and coding the solution has been done, it's just a matter of packaging up that fix in a distributable form that needs to be done.

Now I realise that FG2 and SWEX rulesets used to be two different companies and the old FG developers made some core changes that "broke" functionality in SWEX. That being said, both FG2 and SWEX have been under one roof for some time now. I would have thought if you wanted to continue to sell the ruleset and additional add-on product for it, that fixing the glitches in the ruleset would have been a priority. I know that I have personally been holding off on additional purchases. While I think it is great that additional product for SWEX is being made, if you want my money, fix what I've already bought first. I'm happy to hear that SmiteWorks has a patch in the works and hopefully it will be released soon.

[kalmarjan]

I'm a big fan of FG2. When I was researching tabletop emulators for online play, I was actually leaning towards Battlegrounds initially, but it was the community here that made me decide to go with FG2. While I appreciate all that the community does, I have to side with phloog when it comes to paid-for product. The SWEX ruleset isn't a fan-made or community ruleset like nWoD, Dark Heresy, or some others that are out there. I paid money for the product and I don't think it unreasonable to expect it to work. Even if someone smarter than I has figured out how to hack the ruleset to fix some of the problems, I shouldn't be expected to scour the forums to discover these fixes and then have to manually screw around with the ruleset myself to get it to work. For a fan or community created ruleset, that is fine. For a commercial product, it is not. Even if it is an easy fix. Especially if it is an easy fix, since the hard work of debugging and coding the solution has been done, it's just a matter of packaging up that fix in a distributable form that needs to be done.

Now I realise that FG2 and SWEX rulesets used to be two different companies and the old FG developers made some core changes that "broke" functionality in SWEX. That being said, both FG2 and SWEX have been under one roof for some time now. I would have thought if you wanted to continue to sell the ruleset and additional add-on product for it, that fixing the glitches in the ruleset would have been a priority. I know that I have personally been holding off on additional purchases. While I think it is great that additional product for SWEX is being made, if you want my money, fix what I've already bought first. I'm happy to hear that SmiteWorks has a patch in the works and hopefully it will be released soon.

Well said, sir.

I am not disagreeing with the viewpoint of "the ruleset needs to be fixed."

I also agree that you need not scour the forums for a fix.

Understand that these things are in the works. It will take a bit of time to make sure that the "fix" does not do something that will break the existing code. That is why it is an "unoffical" fix.

Imagine if we just inserted fix A into the code as an update, then the ruleset broke further. That would not look very professional.

As a former developer for Digital Adventures, I can tell you about the frustration of having all the work we did go out the window as there was a "new functionality" introduced in FG. We actually found out AFTER the "feature" was added.

Today, both companies are under the same roof. Communication happens.

I cannot speak for Doug, but I have a feeling that he treads cautiously with these "fixes" to make sure the system does not break.

I just urge that we follow a few steps to make this product even better:

1) Report the bug
2) Report system specs
3) Report version used
4) Report steps to recreate the problem.

With those steps, we can ensure that FG will continue to grow.

I think that a post that just complains that the ruleset sucks, or is a waste of money does not help anyone. We, the community, are here to help.

Like I pointed out in my last response, this idea is not new with any software. If we waited until software was perfect before release, we would not have any software.

Cheers, Stay Savage!

[kalmarjan]

Oops, double post.

Sorry

[phloog]

Just a couple quick ones

I believe Doug said that there was 18K users, labeling yourself as "most profitable" is probably a misstatement.

(snip)

HOW you complain is another thing altogether. I have read various posts of yours that contribute nothing but critisim to the conversation. Saying things like, "such and such is broken" or "It's a waste of money", or "Klooge is better" do nothing to add to the development of a product.

(snip)

To be true, there are a lot of products out there that don't work at first iteration. Games, software, 3D drawing programs, heck, even Photoshop and 3DS Max don't work properly the first time they came out. They are worth 10 times what you would pay for an ultimate license.

The thing is, they have communities just like this one. People who are passionate about the product, who want to see it improve. People who actually put the effort into making it better instead of bitching about how it is "broken".

The 'most profitable' bit - - I didn't say 'most profitable', I said 'ONE of the MORE profitable' (new emphasis mine). When Doug himself said most people don't buy the add-ons and other products, and I myself have the license, the SW ruleset, and all the DToA, I think that it's reasonable to believe I am more profitable than most, based on his own statement implying most people just buy the base FG.

The bit about complaints - - true, I started out with labeling it broken (it is), but then when I met resistance and defensiveness, I posted the biggest problems I had with it - one of which was fixed by the community.

I think your "quotes" that you're attributing to me declaring "Klooge is better" or similar are incorrect...probably best when you use the word "like" to not use the quotation marks, lest someone think those are actual quotes..the "like" seems insufficient.

And in fact if you have looked at my posts, those that you are interpreting as Klooge being better are generally speaking of functions, like the fact that Klooge displays all move distances....correct me if I'm wrong, but pointing out a function or power that the competition has IS giving FG information on what specifically I'd like to see improved, is it not?

The bit about other software - - oddly coincidental choice of examples, or do you know me personally?

I am a licensed owner of Photoshop from early days, and have been a user of 3dsMax since the early 90's - - in truth, when I started it was still 3dStudio Release 3 for DOS. I have paid THOUSANDS over the years for upgrades (and later subscriptions)to that product.

And when there are bugs, they hear about it from me....

(requoting you) "People who actually put the effort into making it better instead of bitching about how it is "broken"." -

- I'm not clear...are you suggesting that I should be actually programming and fixing bugs, or is my posting of the bugs sufficient?

Again, I apologize for any posts that were vague initially, but I'm not really up for relisting the problems I've had at each and every post, and I'd probably get flak if it did THAT for being repetitive.

...but back to your choice of Autodesk (formerly Discreet, Kinetix, etc.etc.) and Adobe - you're right, they have great communities. And many versions in they STILL have bugs.

But Autodesk isn't expecting members of the community to fix the bug that makes the file menu lockup, or to create a better scanline renderer.

If Autodesk announced that the new IK system was going to be a labor of love built by members of the community because they couldn't afford to pay full-time programmers, I'd be looking for another product.