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Fantasy Grounds Unity KS Announced
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<blockquote data-quote="Squeatus" data-source="post: 7610720" data-attributes="member: 6689967"><p>Ultimate license holder here.</p><p></p><p>The move to Unity will be interesting, but probably not in the way it's being presented in this thread.</p><p></p><p>Unity will be the engine that the FG software will be based on, but rulesets (game systems) will use the existing XML and Lua code.</p><p></p><p>XML code without even a DTD or XSD so authors can't properly validate their projects.</p><p></p><p>The API for the FG engine itself is poorly documented, but they've got a framework (CoreRPG) that authors are encouraged to use. A framework that when updated breaks existing community rulesets on the regular. </p><p></p><p>To say you can just "build whatever you want!" is true, but the amount of work that needs to be done to create a fairly robust game system is...daunting.</p><p></p><p>The decision to maintain backward compatibility with old rulesets is what really pisses me off. This means that all of the warts and deficiencies are going to be present, just available on a modern engine under the hood. All of the UI/UX frustration will still be present, as it's baked into the game systems (and the framework they're built upon) themselves. Right-click radial menus, bad input options, poor text formatting, etc.</p><p></p><p>They had an opportunity to bring current design sensibilities in to play, things like "Let's not have MVC stand for Model IS View IS Controller", or "Relative positioning of desktop items could be sensible", or "Vector instead of Raster" for controls/icons and instead chose to maintain the status quo. </p><p></p><p>Authoring modules is a painful enough experience, with no way to cut and paste your own content without using their own limited formatting options and special quirks.</p><p></p><p>Authoring a ruleset is a positively sisyphean effort, as evidenced by the lovingly-crafted-but-still-eventually-abandoned trashpile of broken community rules and dead threads on "I'm working on this project..."</p><p></p><p>A few gatekeepers and grognards seem to be loud enough to hold Smiteworks back from doing the sensible thing, and overhauling the authoring tools and technologies to blow the community up by using the technological touchstones they'd need to invite and encourage real participation.</p><p></p><p>Without a meaningful update to the rules building and module authoring facet of FG, it's going to be limited to what a (very) few skilled/passionate/eccentric people are willing to put up with, and that severely inhibits real innovation.</p><p></p><p>TL;DR: This is like updating Netscape Navigator to a current version of Chrome or Firefox, but you'll still be visiting the same old tripod page with blink tags and javascript pop up boxes.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Squeatus, post: 7610720, member: 6689967"] Ultimate license holder here. The move to Unity will be interesting, but probably not in the way it's being presented in this thread. Unity will be the engine that the FG software will be based on, but rulesets (game systems) will use the existing XML and Lua code. XML code without even a DTD or XSD so authors can't properly validate their projects. The API for the FG engine itself is poorly documented, but they've got a framework (CoreRPG) that authors are encouraged to use. A framework that when updated breaks existing community rulesets on the regular. To say you can just "build whatever you want!" is true, but the amount of work that needs to be done to create a fairly robust game system is...daunting. The decision to maintain backward compatibility with old rulesets is what really pisses me off. This means that all of the warts and deficiencies are going to be present, just available on a modern engine under the hood. All of the UI/UX frustration will still be present, as it's baked into the game systems (and the framework they're built upon) themselves. Right-click radial menus, bad input options, poor text formatting, etc. They had an opportunity to bring current design sensibilities in to play, things like "Let's not have MVC stand for Model IS View IS Controller", or "Relative positioning of desktop items could be sensible", or "Vector instead of Raster" for controls/icons and instead chose to maintain the status quo. Authoring modules is a painful enough experience, with no way to cut and paste your own content without using their own limited formatting options and special quirks. Authoring a ruleset is a positively sisyphean effort, as evidenced by the lovingly-crafted-but-still-eventually-abandoned trashpile of broken community rules and dead threads on "I'm working on this project..." A few gatekeepers and grognards seem to be loud enough to hold Smiteworks back from doing the sensible thing, and overhauling the authoring tools and technologies to blow the community up by using the technological touchstones they'd need to invite and encourage real participation. Without a meaningful update to the rules building and module authoring facet of FG, it's going to be limited to what a (very) few skilled/passionate/eccentric people are willing to put up with, and that severely inhibits real innovation. TL;DR: This is like updating Netscape Navigator to a current version of Chrome or Firefox, but you'll still be visiting the same old tripod page with blink tags and javascript pop up boxes. [/QUOTE]
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