D&D 5E Volo's Guide will be available for Roll20

[Prakriti]

Roll20 didn't have a license for Souncloud. Soundcloud had a public API which they decided to prevent Roll20 from accessing. There was never any legal agreement like there is with WotC's licensing.

It's pretty foolish to say these kind of things without having factual information..

Nonsense. The exact nature of the terms are irrelevant. It still reflects poorly on Roll20 for (1) not having a contingency plan in place that would prevent the loss of service, even though Roll20 was apparently aware of the tenuousness of its access to the Soundcloud API, and (2) not clearly communicating that tenuousness to its customers, who were investing their time and money into a feature that relied on continued access to the Soundcloud API.

Now Roll20 is selling digital copies of Volo's Guide to Monsters.

Roll20 has a history of charging customers for features it can't reliably provide.

See the problem?

 

[Kryx]

Nonsense. It didn't charge anyone for soundcloud - that was a free service for which it provided some nice usability features attached to their paid account.

It has yet to have any difficulty keeping a license from its currently offered products (which is quite a few).

 

[flametitan]

Nonsense. The exact nature of the terms are irrelevant. It still reflects poorly on Roll20 for (1) not having a contingency plan in place that would prevent the loss of service, even though Roll20 was apparently aware of the tenuousness of its access to the Soundcloud API, and (2) not clearly communicating that tenuousness to its customers, who were investing their time and money into a feature that relied on continued access to the Soundcloud API.

Now Roll20 is selling digital copies of Volo's Guide to Monsters.

Roll20 has a history of charging customers for features it can't reliably provide.

See the problem?

You're still misrepresenting the problem. Roll20 had no reason to believe that Soundcloud was going to cut support. Soundcloud gave them no warning; they even allowed roll20 to continue using the API despite the fact that they had such dramatic rule changes to the API usage. And then Soundcloud pulled the plug. Roll20's devs had no time to warn users, or otherwise prepare for it.

Those hours of work were lost not because of Roll20's tenuous grip on the API, but because Soundcloud didn't actually talk to roll20 about it.

 

[Prakriti]

You're still misrepresenting the problem. Roll20 had no reason to believe that Soundcloud was going to cut support. Soundcloud gave them no warning; they even allowed roll20 to continue using the API despite the fact that they had such dramatic rule changes to the API usage. And then Soundcloud pulled the plug. Roll20's devs had no time to warn users, or otherwise prepare for it.

Those hours of work were lost not because of Roll20's tenuous grip on the API, but because Soundcloud didn't actually talk to roll20 about it.

I don't agree with this at all. Roll20's blog and forum posts make it clear that the relationship with Soundcloud was fraught and that Roll20 was at least aware of the potential loss of service:

Roll20’s growth has caused SoundCloud more than once over the past four years to question as to whether or not our integration of their service was within the intent of their API...

As a former Kansan subject to a great many tornadoes, I'd say SoundCloud put us in a "Watch" but not a "Warning." As stated, we've had this conversation with them several times, and the result has always been grandfathering. This time we were not grandfathered.
​

If Roll20 ignored obvious signs like these, then of course I'm going to question their business judgment.

 

[LapBandit]

You're still misrepresenting the problem. Roll20 had no reason to believe that Soundcloud was going to cut support. Soundcloud gave them no warning; they even allowed roll20 to continue using the API despite the fact that they had such dramatic rule changes to the API usage. And then Soundcloud pulled the plug. Roll20's devs had no time to warn users, or otherwise prepare for it.

Those hours of work were lost not because of Roll20's tenuous grip on the API, but because Soundcloud didn't actually talk to roll20 about it.

You are wrong. Roll20 had been cut off before and appealed the decision with Soundcloud and got it reversed. Since Roll20's subscriptions only went up and they were still using the FREE PUBLIC API without paying a cent, you can understand Soundcloud not wanting to pay the costs to host and stream all that data. No one knows what happened behind closed doors (perhaps Soundcloud offered them a pricing model and Roll20 rejected), so let's not be so sure that Roll20 is innocent in their ability to use Soundcloud being revoked.

 

[Prakriti]

Nonsense. It didn't charge anyone for soundcloud - that was a free service for which it provided some nice usability features attached to their paid account.

This is simply misleading. The ability to transfer playlists between games is a Pro-level subscription feature ($10/month), and it is a massive time-saver for anyone with a sizable Jukebox. I was seriously considering upgrading to Pro just to make use of this feature when Soundcloud took a walk. If I had done so, it would have been a total waste of $10.

 

[Kryx]

It was a usability feature for their previous music provider. Obviously when their music provider cuts their access that feature is lost. That feature is such a small subset of the Pro feature. The vast majority of users who use Pro for a feature is for Dynamic Lightning and API access. I never used any of the API features around soundcloud.

To somehow insinuate that Soundcloud's problems are Roll20's problems are ridiculous. You can see the dozens of problems that soundcloud has by googling. http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/...trouble-its-being-sued-over-unpaid-royalties/ for example.

 

[LordEntrails]

True, but it also depends on Roll20 being around for the near future and retaining its license with Wizards. Considering what happened with Soundcloud recently, I'm less trusting....

This is one of the top 3 reasons I went with Fantasy Grounds instead of Roll20. FG is all on my computer. Volo's Guide (when it is released, FG is a preferred store) and all the other content. If Smiteworks goes out of business, has a falling out with any of their partners, whatever, I will never lose access to what I have right now.

Roll20? Not so. They go out of business I lose everything. They change their licensing agreement or pricing structure, either I agree or lose everything. They lose licensing rights? I lose content or capabilities. I'm careful when I put myself in such a position professionally, and even more so when I consider doing so for personal endeavors and I certainly wasn't going to do it unless I had complete faith int he company AND an overriding benefit to do so. I don't and there's not, imo.

 

[Greg Benage]

So anyway, this is awesome. Saves me a ton of time and drudge work. I'm in.

 

[LapBandit]

It was a usability feature for their previous music provider. Obviously when their music provider cuts their access that feature is lost. That feature is such a small subset of the Pro feature. The vast majority of users who use Pro for a feature is for Dynamic Lightning and API access. I never used any of the API features around soundcloud.

To somehow insinuate that Soundcloud's problems are Roll20's problems are ridiculous. You can see the dozens of problems that soundcloud has by googling. http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/...trouble-its-being-sued-over-unpaid-royalties/ for example.

You are my favorite D&D person and my enjoyment of the hobby is enriched by your great labors, so please take this criticism with that in mind.

I think you have heavy confirmation bias because of your close collaboration with Roll20 and are offering up a red herring. It's almost like you are making an ad hominem attack against Soundcloud to protect Roll20 as faultless.