You can now back Fantasy Grounds Unity at:



Back Fantasy Grounds Unity by Clicking on the image above.

(Below you can read the recap of the original twitch stream talking about the Fantasy Grounds Kickstarter for Unity. This stream took place on April 5, 2019 on the Fantasy Grounds Twitch page. The article was compiled from notes from both Lady Shel and Rogue, plus some additional notes from Raddu.)

Smiteworks has been working to create a 64 bit version of the Fantasy Grounds virtual tabletop program, called Fantasy Grounds Unity, and earlier this week, it was announced that a Kickstarter would be happening on May 1, 2019. But, there wasn’t an immediate announcement of any details, other than that, until today.

During the Friday stream of the Fantasy Grounds Friday program, over 300+ fans anxiously awaited more information. And, Doug Davison (President of Smiteworks) and Dave Middleton (Customer Service representative of Smiteworks) did not disappoint.

The stream started out in a fun way as both Dave and Doug teased that the stream was about FG-Con, which is taking place this month. Then, they announced all the products that are newly released as the chat waited with baited breath, sitting on the edge of their chairs, fingers on their keyboards, ready to pose questions.

Earlier in the week, a link was given where fans could submit questions for this particular stream, and fans flooded the list with over 40 questions, which Dave compiled to pose to Doug.

I will post below the questions that were posed along with the answers that Doug provided.

Kickstarter: Why a Kickstarter? What is it? What will I get if I back it?

Most companies will run a Kickstarter to fund the product they are hoping to release. In the case of Fantasy Grounds Unity this is not the case. According to Doug, they are using the Kickstarter to market what they are doing with the program, and raise awareness.

There will be three levels of the Kickstarter.

For new users that have never had a Fantasy Grounds license, they can back with the “ Newcomer ” level Standard license will be $35.00 Ultimate license will be $135.00.

” level For users that have purchased a license in either 2018 or 2019, they can back with the “ Rookie ” level Standard license will be $15.00 Ultimate license will be $30.00.

” level For users that have purchased a license prior to 2018, they can back with the “ Veteran ” level Standard license will be $29.00 Ultimate license will be $60.00.

” level

If you have a current license, you will retain that license for the current version of Fantasy Grounds, which will hereto be called “Fantasy Grounds Classic.” But your license will not transfer. You will need to buy a new license for “Fantasy Grounds Unity,” as I described with the pricing above.

All users that back the Kickstarter will have access to the Beta. As of now, they plan to be in Beta for several months.

There will also be an Alpha backer tier that comes with an Alpha VIP party. The Alpha will be available approximately 2 months prior to the Beta.

Fantasy Grounds Unity: What are some of the features that will and will not be included?

Current content will need to be enhanced to work with Unity. Work is being done to make sure that as much content as possible is available prior to the Beta, and this is one of the top priorities.

Smiteworks does intend on streaming content for Unity at some point, but not right away. They are working on some smaller videos to show the features of the program.

Fantasy Grounds Unity may be available for tablets at some point, but not right away.

may be available for tablets at some point, but not right away. There will be a new reskin for the way Fantasy Grounds Unity looks.

looks. Port forwarding will remain to be available as an option for connecting, however there will be a Cloud option that will allow someone to have a private or public game.

There will not be custom aliases available. Everything will be associated with your username.

There will be a main gathering area, or a lobby, but at this time there is not chat function, yet it may be added later on.

Fantasy Grounds Unity is a stand-alone application, as opposed to browser based.

is a stand-alone application, as opposed to browser based. There will be support for Windows, Mac and Linux. It is possible that support for Playstation or Nintendo may be added later on.

Fantasy Grounds Unity will eventually just be known as Fantasy Grounds, while the current version will be known as Fantasy Grounds Classic .

will eventually just be known as Fantasy Grounds, while the current version will be known as . There will continue to be Demo versions, however there will be two types, one for Fantasy Grounds Unity and another for Fantasy Grounds Classic .

and another for . There are prototypes available customized dice, but it’s unsure whether this will be available for launch.

A token maker tool for non-round tokens is being looked at, but at this time it’s just a suggestion to be added to the wish list.

Map sizes will remain at the current restrictions for the time being so that the work isn’t being duplicated to support both smaller and larger sizes. In the future there may be a way to include both hi-res and low-res options for Fantasy Grounds Unity users.

users. There will be an isometric grid type.

There will be an in-client mapper to support tiles or drawing.

They are currently working with dynamic lighting to show LOS and advanced fog of war. There will also be special weather effects, such as fog, rain, etc.

Players that are controlling more than one character will have different LOS based on which character they are controlling at the time.

Multiple-Monitor support is not something that is currently being addressed, however you can still drag your screen across two windows by viewing in windowed mode.

Developers will not need to learn new tools. Smiteworks will reach out to a limited number of developers at first to give them access to APIs, and that list will grow with time.

Extensions should function as they do currently.

There will be vector based drawing tools.

The rich text editor will be similar to what is being used in Fantasy Grounds Classic .

. There are no plans to offer sound support other than what is currently available with Fantasy Grounds Classic .

. 3D maps may be supported in the future, but not with phase one.

Dynamic Lighting demo clips from show

https://clips.twitch.tv/AcceptableInnocentPorpoiseOhMyDog

https://clips.twitch.tv/ConfidentProtectiveGarlic4Head

Google Doc link from Raddu (Robert Adducci)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZL8DVBkvccbjdCIAqpL0FvQFdEdJuITt/view?usp=sharing

We at Fantasy Grounds College are fans of the Fantasy Grounds program, and advocate its use in playing D&D and other RPGs online. We are not affiliated or officially endorsed by SmiteWorks USA LLC or Fantasy Grounds.

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