How Fantasy Grounds Unity can be the top VTT even with WotC's new 3DVTT and DnDBeyond

[Ryuson]

I’m thinking this would be feasible only on the player side? I can’t imagine a GMing a game on FG on a tablet.

[LordEntrails]

The devs are currently working on tablet version for viewing Reference Manual content. It's the first step.

And yes, phone and tablet versions are technically possible. But as with most things, it's a trade-off. There are only so many developer hours to go around, and SmiteWorks has to decide what is the most effective use for those developer hours. Also note that something like a phone version with a different UI (touch interface) would require a separate build stream (since Unity does not have a single set of libraries to accomplish this) and that would mean it would cost recurring developer hours for every future update, making future enhancements slower.

[SilentRuin]

I have enough real estate issues with my ultra wide monitor - trying to fit all this and run a game on a phone or tablet screen?

No chance. It would be a very painful experience almost however they attempted to do it with that limited real estate. Would probably only be viable for very specific "non playing the game or running the game" data review revision of sheets.

[MentalChillness]

Yes, it would be nice if my FGU had a dedicated server through the cloud that is always online and that players can log in to. Adding mobile support for character sheets and reading modules would be nice. I think people may be able to play from a tablet, but it would be difficult from a phone. I would like the server to always be online or for people to be able to access like a campaign manager/wiki of our campaign without having to login to the server itself. These are just some options that would make it more accessible and convenient for a lot of the newer players. FG is a wonderful tool which allows you to play many different games. Of course most people just want to play 5e, but adding a DnD Beyond like feature to our FG campaigns would be nice and helpful to GMs that don't want to or can't keep their server up 24/7. I could host a server dedicated server, but I'd rather have that option through the FGU cloud and pay FG for the server time/bandwidth to make it nice and simple.

[LordEntrails]

Yes, it would be nice if my FGU had a dedicated server through the cloud that is always online .... but I'd rather have that option through the FGU cloud and pay FG for the server time/bandwidth to make it nice and simple.

Make sure you vote for the ideas:
Idea Informer » Feedback 2.0 and
Idea Informer » Feedback 2.0

[MentalChillness]

Make sure you vote for the ideas:
Idea Informer » Feedback 2.0 and
Idea Informer » Feedback 2.0

Thank you sir will do!

[indavis]

I’m thinking this would be feasible only on the player side? I can’t imagine a GMing a game on FG on a tablet.

Yes, I am talking about players, not DM'ing from a phone or tablet.

I have enough real estate issues with my ultra wide monitor - trying to fit all this and run a game on a phone or tablet screen?

No chance. It would be a very painful experience almost however they attempted to do it with that limited real estate. Would probably only be viable for very specific "non playing the game or running the game" data review revision of sheets.

That wouldn't be the use case. It would be so that players could connect via an app, or their browser to a phone or tablet and have limited but useful windows available. Like for die rolls, maybe their character sheet, or tables. Think about this. Not everyone has a laptop. Let's say you do and bring it to a game day. People who have FGU only loaded on a pc either have to lug the pc or just go without. This way, they could just pull their phone out, and still connect to the DM and do things like die rolls when it's their turn, etc. I don't understand what seems to be a lot of opposition to this idea.

Also, I see the comments about separate compiling, etc. If you have code in the server that can spit out html 5 or even just plain html for simpler functionality, that would open up things tremendously.

[MentalChillness]

Yes, I am talking about players, not DM'ing from a phone or tablet.



That wouldn't be the use case. It would be so that players could connect via an app, or their browser to a phone or tablet and have limited but useful windows available. Like for die rolls, maybe their character sheet, or tables. Think about this. Not everyone has a laptop. Let's say you do and bring it to a game day. People who have FGU only loaded on a pc either have to lug the pc or just go without. This way, they could just pull their phone out, and still connect to the DM and do things like die rolls when it's their turn, etc. I don't understand what seems to be a lot of opposition to this idea.

Also, I see the comments about separate compiling, etc. If you have code in the server that can spit out html 5 or even just plain html for simpler functionality, that would open up things tremendously.

This is absolutely what I would like to have. My players always need access to my server at random times and I have to leave it up 24/7. One of them lives in China and we are all in different time zones. I'd also like a campaign manager/wiki feature that is connected to fantasy grounds so I don't have to manually move character sheets and campaign information to Obsidian Portal. Something they can access in or outside of the FG server.

[Sulimo]

Yes, I am talking about players, not DM'ing from a phone or tablet.


Also, I see the comments about separate compiling, etc. If you have code in the server that can spit out html 5 or even just plain html for simpler functionality, that would open up things tremendously.

You are basically talking about having FG be a web server, that would take things back to the FGC days to port forwarding, and all of the attendant issues with that. FG is not cloud based like Roll20 for instance. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that this sort of implementation will have to deal with these things to make it work. One of the biggest headaches for FGC was port forwarding. Since FG is not cloud based, it'll be more difficult to do this.

Smiteworks has talked about a reader app for viewing the various modules in a mobile app, but it's being held up by licensing, not SmiteWorks (at least that is the last info I heard).

Beyond a reader may be difficult in some cases. For instance, Apple forbids apps from modifying code without going through the App Store, this is what extensions do, so extensions would be right out for any Fantasy Grounds app for Apple devices. Google does as well, but their methodology for mobile apps is different, which has caused lots of issues in the past (nefarious developers submitting an app, then triggering a code change from outside the store), side-loading is also possible for Android as a work around (although Google appears to be cracking down on it).

Then there are the app store policies themselves, especially for Apple, I've previously outlined some of the challenges here and here.

This is absolutely what I would like to have. My players always need access to my server at random times and I have to leave it up 24/7. One of them lives in China and we are all in different time zones. I'd also like a campaign manager/wiki feature that is connected to fantasy grounds so I don't have to manually move character sheets and campaign information to Obsidian Portal. Something they can access in or outside of the FG server.

I have to be honest, I've been GMing for 30+ years, and never once have my players requested to have access to their characters outside of the sessions. If the players did not have access to the books, it was pretty useless anyway.

Before VTTs, my players usually asked me to hold on to their sheets so they would not lose them. Even now, my players have never made that kind of request. Maybe it's because I don't play D&D, but even then, back in the 80s and 90s we dabbled with AD&D, and no one ever asked to 'work' on their characters outside of a session.

So would someone care to explain why this is so important? Because I am not seeing the need.

[indavis]

Yes, I am basically mentioning using html connectivity to allow certain functionality. This is different than port forwarding. Sure there would be headaches, but that goes with any programming, especially once you start adding features. I am watching a lot of videos for playthrus of games that I would like to gm or play, and a ton of them have some of the players just connecting to the game for things like die rolls, and from what I can gather things like simple map viewing, etc. While I get that it kind of goes against the grain of getting new users to the software, and I own an unlimited license just for that reason (to get new people interested), there are also times that I can see an advantage where people could just pop up a browser for limited functionality connecting to a currently running campaign. This is all merely conversation and suggestions as I well understand the complexity. Adding in "html server" code, dealing with the myriad of browser compatibility issues, etc. But just think how innovative it would be if a gm could do something like click a button and generate a url for a player to just pop into their browser and be able to join in the die rolling, or the game chat. I play with a small group of people and while another in our team is fully with me on using the software and has an unlimited license as well, getting some of the others to install new software is a hard sell at the moment. Possibly having this limited functionality would be enough to push them to eventually go for it. Plus, like I said, sometimes you have things installed on a machine you can't just drag around.