Rolz Update April 2018

Hello there and thanks again for supporting Rolz with your generous donations. We're sitting at about $40 per month right now, which goes a long way toward financing the server cost. Given that hundreds of people use Rolz every day to roleplay, you Patrons are the ones who actually stepped up in support. Thanks for being awesome!

There are two big things coming up and you'll be the first ones to know :)

EU Data Protection Law

First, on the not-so-awesome front, it is still very much up in the air what to do with the new EU data regulation, and Germany's implementation in particular. After I saw some hobbyist forums were forced to close due to having user accounts, I was (and still am) worried about liability. While Rolz doesn't use any 3rd-party analytics, and in fact loads the few social media buttons it has only if the user explicitly clicks on them, I could not get even one of the two lawyers I consulted to actually give me the green light.

One lawyer couldn't be persuaded that Rolz isn't an eCommerce site (not making this up) and the other one was pretty sure I would have to hire a person to take care of "user privacy inquiries and issues" full time. Both of these are of course ridiculous and can't be applied to Rolz even if I wanted to, the costs would just be prohibitive. 

I was also urged to "spin off" Rolz into its own company, preferably one that is headquartered outside of the EU, which is equally as stupid, but it's the one I'm seriously considering right now. Fact is that even a single complaint, especially if it comes from a German lawyer specializing in these complaint-for-profit schemes, could completely ruin me. That's a big risk for a non-profit hobbyist site / project to take. Also on the table is outright geoblocking Germany and displaying a huge disclaimer for people from other EU countries. 

This whole thing is also the reason why Rolz doesn't have email integration in any way, and why there is no password recovery feature. I'm trying to keep the things I know about my users to an absolute minimum.

Finally, to anyone claiming this stuff was introduced for consumer protection: it wasn't. Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are still operating as normal, with superficial adjustments at best. Make no mistake, this legislation targets the small sites.

New Features

Second, on the good news front: there are more features coming up! I'm working on a thing that allows you to put stats and macros into Wiki pages, and then call these from the chat. This would allow you to pull in, say, attributes from your character sheet. It should finally enable people to make custom tables where you can roll for a random entry. 

I'm still considering a scripting language, although there haven't been many requests for that level of customization yet. If that's something that interests you, please let me know.

Finally, I want to make at least a basic map/grid feature this year. With a little luck, I can squeeze that in...

Alright, that's it for now. Thanks again for your support, it's really appreciated. :)

Cheers,

Udo

PS: to anyone who hasn't claimed their reward icon yet, please send me a message with your username so I can update your account.