A New Chapter: The Road to 0.7.0

Hello dear supporters! Foundry Virtual Tabletop release is now behind us and what an incredible weekend it has been! There were YouTube videos, there were Twitch live streams, there were license giveaways, and there was this glorious cake sent to me by the amazing mod team.

Now that release is behind me (feels so surreal to say that) I am beginning to look ahead towards what is next for Foundry VTT. As you all know by now Beta testing is over and a new post-release structure of Patreon tiers has begun. Those changes are all now in effect, so this post is the first which corresponds to those new tiers and benefits. 

New Exclusive Content

As some of you have seen already, there is a new section of Modules on the official website called Exclusive Content , a new category which features collaborations and partnerships with some of the leading content creators in the Virtual Tabletop space. My goal is to add new content to this section regularly, and I'm thrilled to share the first two submissions which are available for free to all Foundry license owners!

Michael Ghelfi Audio Pack

This audio pack provides a selection of professional quality ambient sounds and music offered by Michael Ghelfi. These sounds come from the greatest library of ambient sounds for RPGs and include 13 immersive environmental ambiences and 4 memorable musical scores.

Miska's Maps - Battlemap Pack

This special pack of 12 game-ready battlemaps is provided courtesy of Miska's Maps. Miska creates beautiful hand-drawn fantasy and sci-fi maps every month. All maps are pre-configured for Foundry VTT with walls, doors and light sources.

Upcoming Release Strategy

The strategy for software relases after launch is as follows. Each release will build up to a major version through a series of smaller Alpha and Beta channel updates. Each major release will focus on three large features as well as any number of smaller features and bug fixes. I will be choosing two of the "large features" based on my own assessment of importance and prioritization, and the third feature will be chosen each version by the community through a Patreon poll (the first iteration of which accompanies this post).

The next major release will be Version 0.7.0. The large features that I have chosen to focus on for Version 0.7.0 are:

An Improved Audio and Playlists System. 

The audio control tools in Foundry VTT are pretty good, but I think they can be made better with a number of (relatively) simple improvements. This update will focus on improving both the backend support for audio with better server-side tools to orchestrate synchronization as well as more flexible client-side to improve organization, configuration, and quality of audio effects both for Playlists and for Ambient Sound sources.

Improved Dice API

The second large feature I have chosen to tackle in the next up date is improvements to the Dice rolling API which are intended to allow greater flexibility and control to Systems which need to define custom Die types, custom roll modifiers, or even custom procedures for evaluating roll results. These improvements will re-work some of the structure for how Die, Roll, and DicePool objects are defined and configured (while attempting to minimize breaking changes to the API), and will enable easier support for systems like FFG, Modiphius 2d20, or custom homebrew dice mechanics.

Your Vote Counts

The third feature included in the 0.7.0 series of updates will be voted on by the community from the following filtered list of options:

"Simple" Fog of War - An alternative to the default fog of war system which would, instead, give a gamemaster direct control over the Fog of War exploration through manual masking and unmasking of the fog exploration state.

Active Effects System (Phase 1) - Active Effects will provide an official structure and mechanism for Actors to be modified by temporary effects which change their attributes. The Active Effects system will provide an official API framework for tracking duration-based or item-based effects that can be easily added or removed from an affected Actor. This option is listed as (Phase 1) because the Active Effects system is a very large feature and not all of it's components will be built right away.

Card Decks and Hands - Card Decks will extend the Roll Tables system by allowing for a sub-type of table which specifically represents a Card Deck. A Card Deck will have a special UI, and which cards have been drawn from the Deck will be tracked at the User level in the concept of a Hand. This feature will add official API support to use card decks as well as an interface for users to create their own homebrew Card Decks.

Overlay Tiles - Overlay Tiles will be a new Canvas Layer which will allow for Tiles to be placed on a layer above the background, tokens, and regular tiles. Tiles placed in this overlay layer will have some special properties which will configure their behavior when Tokens move beneath them with options to change their visibility dynamically as controlled tokens pass underneath. This will allow for immersive effects with building roofs, tree tops, or bridges.

Event Triggers (Phase 1) - The Event Triggers system will expand upon the Macros system by allowing for location-based triggers to be defined on each Scene with varying trigger conditions. When a Token activates the trigger condition, a linked Macro will be executed allowing for the gamemaster to define scripted events. In addition to custom Macro executions, Event Triggers will also enable warp points between connected Scenes or activation of Traps. This option is listed as (Phase 1) because the Event Triggers system is a very large feature and not all of it's components will be built right away. 

Curved Walls - Curved walls will allow for any wall type to be made into an arc which can smoothly connect two points in a curved arc instead of a direct line. This will allow for rounded building or terrain shapes to be made using far fewer line segments which will improve the accuracy of dynamic lighting as well as (potentially) improve performance by reducing the count Wall objects in each Scene.

Improved Weather Effects - Improved Weather Effects will iterate upon the initial Weather Effects implementation to improve upon it. These improvements will target performance by reducing the rendering complexity for weather on large maps and at small zoom scales, immersion by enabling the definition of "weather-free" zones so you can have rain outside but no rain inside, and variety by adding several new built-in weather filters that can be utilized.

Patreon supporters are invited to vote in the Poll to choose your favorite options between the above features. The most popular choice will be selected as the third large feature for update 0.7.0 and the voting amongst runners-up will help to define prioritization for future updates and polls.

Thank you for sharing your preferences and influencing the post-release development roadmap of Foundry VTT!