Jumpgate Is An Overhaul of the Roll20 VTT

A new engine with a focus on improved performance and user interface.

Our Founder in Residence Riley introduces Roll20 Jumpgate: a major reworking of what powers our VTT + efforts to integrate the new UI redesign efforts for a faster, more modern experience.

Jumpgate is the name of our overall project to deliver to you the largest overhaul and modernization of our VTT platform since we started. It’s a major reworking of the lowest level of the engine code that powers our VTT, as well as an opportunity for us to bring together all of the recent strides we’ve made with our new UI redesign efforts.
Bottom line: it means a faster, more performant VTT, with a beautiful modern interface, built on top of the latest web technology that will last us well into the future.

Here is a stress test video.

 

[Lanefan]

Being browser-based, probably not much on the user end?

"Not much" would still be too much for some.

Some higher-tech aspects of roll20 (e.g. dynamic lighting) already cause my computer to freeze up; and I refuse to spend money on new tech just for this (which would be the only reason I'd need to upgrade, everything else works fine).

 

[MarkB]

"Not much" would still be too much for some.

Some higher-tech aspects of roll20 (e.g. dynamic lighting) already cause my computer to freeze up; and I refuse to spend money on new tech just for this (which would be the only reason I'd need to upgrade, everything else works fine).

Part of the reason for doing this may be to ease some of the issues that are caused by layering new systems onto what is now quite an old legacy interface, so I wouldn't necessarily expect the requirements to increase.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

"Not much" would still be too much for some.

Some higher-tech aspects of roll20 (e.g. dynamic lighting) already cause my computer to freeze up; and I refuse to spend money on new tech just for this (which would be the only reason I'd need to upgrade, everything else works fine).

Requirements are probably going to decrease cause Roll20 is very unoptimized, and the point of this seems to be to make it work better.

 

[Zaukrie]

Requirements are probably going to decrease cause Roll20 is very unoptimized, and the point of this seems to be to make it work better.

Agreed.

It's unlikely I'll go back from foundry at this point. Their only advantage is WotC products at this point

 

[damiller]

I've used Roll20 from the beginning, and its worked great for what I need, but honestly since I rarely play games like 5e, or similiar games, its been easy to use. I remember wondering when they started if they would last long. Glad to see they have, and that they are finding ways to be more competitive.

 

[MNblockhead]

Glad to see this. The more the major VTTs up their game the better tools available to customers.

While I run my games in Foundry, I occasionally play in Roll20 games run by other people. I've experienced no major issues with it, but improvements in its interface and performance would be welcome.

Now I would just like to see more publishers up their game. I appreciate the fact that it is likely not cost efficient for many smaller publishers to invest in building workable game systems in even one VTT, much less multiple. But as a customer, I'm not at the point where I'm choosing game systems AND VTTs based on how well the system is supported.

I was considering running DCC Dying Earth after my current 5e campaign end (this weekend!), but while the DCC core system has decent support in Foundry and Fantasy Grounds, the Dying Earth series doesn't. I might do the work to add the tables etc., but to getting the new classes working in Foundry or Fantasy Grounds requires way too much work than I'm willing to expend. I'm fine with HTML and CSS customizations, but the Java programming needed would make it take that much longer for me. And I just don't want to run DCC from PDFs with all the constant table look up.

So I took a look at Warhammer Fantasy Role Play 4e. Cubicle7 has done a great job in building support for the system in Foundry. Their Foundry modules are excellent and well worth the money. That was the hook and which made me take a look at the system and lore, which I'm falling in love with again.

Heck, I could live without having the system in a VTT if there were ANY thought to digital support. But so many publishers have no decent web tools. Even the PDFs from most publishers are terrible to use on smaller screens, have no ebook versions, etc. For most systems I would happily pay a subscription for a well designed, searchable, well hyperlinked on-line version.

 

[Zaukrie]

Glad to see this. The more the major VTTs up their game the better tools available to customers.

While I run my games in Foundry, I occasionally play in Roll20 games run by other people. I've experienced no major issues with it, but improvements in its interface and performance would be welcome.

Now I would just like to see more publishers up their game. I appreciate the fact that it is likely not cost efficient for many smaller publishers to invest in building workable game systems in even one VTT, much less multiple. But as a customer, I'm not at the point where I'm choosing game systems AND VTTs based on how well the system is supported.

I was considering running DCC Dying Earth after my current 5e campaign end (this weekend!), but while the DCC core system has decent support in Foundry and Fantasy Grounds, the Dying Earth series doesn't. I might do the work to add the tables etc., but to getting the new classes working in Foundry or Fantasy Grounds requires way too much work than I'm willing to expend. I'm fine with HTML and CSS customizations, but the Java programming needed would make it take that much longer for me. And I just don't want to run DCC from PDFs with all the constant table look up.

So I took a look at Warhammer Fantasy Role Play 4e. Cubicle7 has done a great job in building support for the system in Foundry. Their Foundry modules are excellent and well worth the money. That was the hook and which made me take a look at the system and lore, which I'm falling in love with again.

Heck, I could live without having the system in a VTT if there were ANY thought to digital support. But so many publishers have no decent web tools. Even the PDFs from most publishers are terrible to use on smaller screens, have no ebook versions, etc. For most systems I would happily pay a subscription for a well designed, searchable, well hyperlinked on-line version.

I just published a PDF with quite a few links, it isn't that hard to do. It amazes me how bad some pdfs from big players are.

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

I've enjoyed the nearly four years that I've been using Roll20. It's a helluva lot easier to set up and run sessions there than in person, for sure (although I do miss in-person play). Of course some quirks here and there, but especially with the Beyond20 plugin, things tend to run pretty smoothly for the most part.

I've been trying to get any of my three groups to try out Alchemy RPG, though, as there's definitely a huge uptick in user experience, immersion, etc. there for a more "cinematic" feel of play, especially good if your group is less about the tactical combat and more about the social interaction and exploration aspects (and theater of mind for combat). BUT even that team has realized the need for tactical combat features and have been working hard to get the grid system and such up to snuff. Unfortunately, Alchemy RPG is still not quite there yet in comparison to Roll20 which has made most of my players balk at switching over, so my year subscription with the Founder's Box is almost done with exactly 0 games played. LOL

If Roll20 decides to try to compete with Alchemy RPG in any of those aspects, though, that would be interesting for sure. It doesn't seem like they have a massive dev team, though, so I don't know that they'd even be able to (not that Alchemy RPG themselves are a massive team).

 

[Pentallion]

I and my group of 6 players have happily used Roll20 for years with no problem. We don't play a lot of 5e but that has great support as do a vast array of other systems.
Looking forward to seeing the upgrades

 

[Celebrim]

It's amazing just how hard to use the available VTT's are.

I'm reminded of the time I spent as a young man selling automated irrigation systems. We were supposed to be a distributer for this CAD software package meant for the landscaping industry, and I had become reasonably proficient in it and I was talking to the salesperson about it. And I told him about using it to design a golf course, and how it would be wonderful if it just automatically did the nodal and/or loop analysis for you so that you could verify your pipe sizing and several other features that I thought would be easy to automate that would save a ton of complex hand calculations.

And he told me that when initially released the software actually had many of those features but that their primary customers - landscape architects - had demanded that the automation be removed from the software because "if the software could do all the hard stuff for you know one would need a landscape architect".

And I can't help but feel as a I try to get into VTT's that the same thing is going on. The real money in a VTT isn't the VTT, but in the modules and content packages that they sell to use on the VTT. And if the VTT was actually easy to use, then they'd sell less prepackaged content so why would the make a VTT that was easy to use?