Player Tokens

[Zacchaeus]

I think you answered your own question. As you say very few players invest and so only those players who are also DMs and have therefore purchased tokens will know that they can't use those tokens whilst joined to a game - they can only allocate them when they create their own campaign; create the character and then import into the DMs game.

Allowing players access to assets is highly problematic given the way that Unity handles assets. Portraits are allowed because they are differently set up and created than are tokens or images.

If you look around the forums you'll find plenty of historical posts looking for FGVTT to have 3d maps and assets. Such posts will often be people wondering why FGVTT is 'so far behind' the shiny Foundry which has lots of 3d stuff but not a lot else. So I think the 3d upgrade is essential for FGVTT to attract new customers. Whilst there may be a lot of posts from people who aren't interested in it we don't know exactly just how much new business it has brought in; and the people who shout the loudest are often those with complaints. Most people who like things don't ever bother saying that in a public forum. Given the number of questions that I see about how to do this or that with the 3d asset building both here and on Discord it seems to me that a lot of people use them and so like them.

I agree that the forums aren't well used like they were in the past (Discord has probably been responsible for much of that); and it's the same people who regularly post. And since it's a microcosm of the user base the opinions tend to be skewed towards that small group. Smiteworks don't just rely on what is said here or on the feature lists alone; they monitor a broad spectrum of sources to garner what both existing and new customers want.

There are several requested features on the feature list which have been completed and some that are currently in progress.

[claedawg]

I don't expect SW to allow DMs to directly share their tokens with players as that would probably be crossing the line on copyrights and whatnot. It would be nice for me to be able to use the tokens I have purchased when I am player though. Since all of the GMs I have played under so far do not allow characters to be made outside of their campaign (I am the same way) it makes it impossible for me to use those tokens for myself as a player. It just makes no sense to allow players to access their portraits folder and not their token folder.

[LordEntrails]

I don't expect SW to allow DMs to directly share their tokens with players as that would probably be crossing the line on copyrights and whatnot. It would be nice for me to be able to use the tokens I have purchased when I am player though. Since all of the GMs I have played under so far do not allow characters to be made outside of their campaign (I am the same way) it makes it impossible for me to use those tokens for myself as a player. It just makes no sense to allow players to access their portraits folder and not their token folder.

We understand. And no one disagrees that it's a strange decision. But it was made more than a decade ago and though it comes up on occasion, there are work arounds and it really doesn't come up that often. I'm sure SmiteWorks is not opposed to making the change, but it may mean they have to review all the contract agreements they have with all the token artists to make sure such a change won't impact any legal agreements. Then they have to make the technical change. And as said, all of this is instead of doing something else.

[claedawg]

I would imagine the technical issue would be as easy as copy pasting the portion of code that allows players to access to their own portraits folder with two or three changes to make allow access to the player's tokens folder.

Legally, should be no different than the legality behind allowing players access to their portraits folder. I'm not talking about allowing the GM to share his/her assets.

The current way to do it seems more "illegal" (for the players and GM) by making the players and GM sharing assets themselves (if they want a token that is not a copy of the portrait). With the change I'm proposing, there is no sharing of assets.

[Zacchaeus]

I think that if it were as simple as copy/pasting some code it would have been done already. So I think we can assume that giving players access to specific assets is not a simple task and would require a great deal of development time.

[damned]

I would imagine the technical issue would be as easy as copy pasting the portion of code that allows players to access to their own portraits folder with two or three changes to make allow access to the player's tokens folder.

Thats exactly how coding works. People imagine things and coders make them happen just like magic.