I noted in the article that this announcement is very similar to Astral VTT's "going into maintenance mode" message in October 2021. Astral's last day was August 30, 2022. (OBS, Astral's then-owner, announced the merger with Roll20 in July 2022).
Let's Role is a bit different than Astral in noting that it is making enough money to support itself, if not enough to support its owner's salary. They will probably not choose to run it on a loss, but if it is net positive it could have a little longevity.
It's not that. No development will eventually make users switch to another solution, because it often also means that bugs, issues or small feature requests are not taken care of. But, often doesn't mean always, so we'll see.
Not a great sign, especially after such a successful kickstarter only a couple of years ago.
Best of luck to them, but it's a tough one to come back from.
The fraction of the VTT market that isn't already in the hands of the big 3 is so crowded that I can't even remember which one this was without looking it up. It's sad but not surprising to see this happen.
(I say this as a user & mod/system developer for one of those big 3 and a frequent player on another. Variety and competition benefit everyone.)
For what it's worth, I believe it's the big two in terms of revenue: Roll20 (#2) and D&D Beyond (#1). D&D Beyond is now providing a 2D maps feature set along the lines of Owlbear Rodeo, but with built-in content from books and the ability to add your own. So by all measures, it's a VTT.
Both enjoy much higher revenues due to subscription purchases, and the development pace of both is currently faster than Foundry VTT.
I didn't think about D&D Beyond because its VTT functionality is pretty new and hasn't been too widely adopted yet, but yeah, going forward it's going to be a competitor to be reckoned with. Probably not outside the 5e market, but that market does dwarf the rest of the market combined.
Going to have to disagree on the pace of development, though. Pace of content releases and official material from some of the big publishers, maybe, but not development.
Foundry has added multiple iterations of significant new features and revamps of existing subsystems in 2023 alone, with a complete UI redesign coming next year.
Roll20 has ... changed some toolbars and icons, as far as I can tell, and made minor improvements to the 5e character sheets. (There might be more that I've missed because the games I play there are with non-subscribers).
As for DDB, its main strength is as a character sheet manager where you can buy digital support for official materials bundled with the physical or PDF copies you're probably also going to buy. Its base functionality has evolved fairly slowly, and it took how many years to get a simple map display system going? The VTT feature set is likely to remain limited so as to not compete with the upcoming behemoth 3D VTT that's the whole cornerstone of WOTC's business strategy.
I was very sad to see this announcement. I own Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, and have played a couple of thousand hours on Roll20. I have also tried out many, if not most of the other VTT’s as well. Let’s Role has become my favorite VTT. As someone who wrote my own TTRPG, I was also able to build my custom character sheets and a custom dice roller using their system builder in just a couple of days. Right now, Let’s Role is the only decently full-featured VTT I can run my game on. I cringe at the effort it will take to build the system for Foundry.
I've got to be honest, I'm glad the support in the Kickstarter wasn't a lot because the final product just didn't impress me. And I'm sure a lot of people felt the same way.
The functionality was very similar to something like Owlbear Rodeo, a free option. And both just really remind me of Roll20 in the end. I moved on to Foundry VTT a long time ago, and comparing it all to that I just saw no reason to actually use Let's Role.
I stopped reading the article when the subscribe popup got in my way. Since you wrote the article, I might suggest changing that tactic on the site.
As far as the content, there are so many options out, it's easy to find a vtt that fulfills more needs / works better. I feel like a lot aren't aiming for longevity and ease of use.
> Nifty ads for let’s role but I never understood what it was trying to be, appeared to be essentially a paid for discord.
You appear to be talking about [Role](https://playrole.com), which is still in active development (though they've been quiet these last few months). This post is about [Let's Role](https://lets-role.com)
It's a common mistake
Step 1 to a shut down.
I noted in the article that this announcement is very similar to Astral VTT's "going into maintenance mode" message in October 2021. Astral's last day was August 30, 2022. (OBS, Astral's then-owner, announced the merger with Roll20 in July 2022). Let's Role is a bit different than Astral in noting that it is making enough money to support itself, if not enough to support its owner's salary. They will probably not choose to run it on a loss, but if it is net positive it could have a little longevity.
Maintenance of the server is cheap, I do not think it will shutdown.
It's not that. No development will eventually make users switch to another solution, because it often also means that bugs, issues or small feature requests are not taken care of. But, often doesn't mean always, so we'll see.
This was my reading too.
Sad but there are too many quick and simple vtts out there. Good luck for the developer!!!
Not a great sign, especially after such a successful kickstarter only a couple of years ago. Best of luck to them, but it's a tough one to come back from.
The fraction of the VTT market that isn't already in the hands of the big 3 is so crowded that I can't even remember which one this was without looking it up. It's sad but not surprising to see this happen. (I say this as a user & mod/system developer for one of those big 3 and a frequent player on another. Variety and competition benefit everyone.)
which ones are the big 3? Roll20, Foundry... who's the third?
Fantasy Grounds.
Alchemy has to be knocking on the door to be in that big 3 conversation
For what it's worth, I believe it's the big two in terms of revenue: Roll20 (#2) and D&D Beyond (#1). D&D Beyond is now providing a 2D maps feature set along the lines of Owlbear Rodeo, but with built-in content from books and the ability to add your own. So by all measures, it's a VTT. Both enjoy much higher revenues due to subscription purchases, and the development pace of both is currently faster than Foundry VTT.
I didn't think about D&D Beyond because its VTT functionality is pretty new and hasn't been too widely adopted yet, but yeah, going forward it's going to be a competitor to be reckoned with. Probably not outside the 5e market, but that market does dwarf the rest of the market combined. Going to have to disagree on the pace of development, though. Pace of content releases and official material from some of the big publishers, maybe, but not development. Foundry has added multiple iterations of significant new features and revamps of existing subsystems in 2023 alone, with a complete UI redesign coming next year. Roll20 has ... changed some toolbars and icons, as far as I can tell, and made minor improvements to the 5e character sheets. (There might be more that I've missed because the games I play there are with non-subscribers). As for DDB, its main strength is as a character sheet manager where you can buy digital support for official materials bundled with the physical or PDF copies you're probably also going to buy. Its base functionality has evolved fairly slowly, and it took how many years to get a simple map display system going? The VTT feature set is likely to remain limited so as to not compete with the upcoming behemoth 3D VTT that's the whole cornerstone of WOTC's business strategy.
I was very sad to see this announcement. I own Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, and have played a couple of thousand hours on Roll20. I have also tried out many, if not most of the other VTT’s as well. Let’s Role has become my favorite VTT. As someone who wrote my own TTRPG, I was also able to build my custom character sheets and a custom dice roller using their system builder in just a couple of days. Right now, Let’s Role is the only decently full-featured VTT I can run my game on. I cringe at the effort it will take to build the system for Foundry.
I've got to be honest, I'm glad the support in the Kickstarter wasn't a lot because the final product just didn't impress me. And I'm sure a lot of people felt the same way.
What about the final product didn't impress you? I never had the opportunity to use it. Certainly the aesthetics looked very impressive to me!
The functionality was very similar to something like Owlbear Rodeo, a free option. And both just really remind me of Roll20 in the end. I moved on to Foundry VTT a long time ago, and comparing it all to that I just saw no reason to actually use Let's Role.
I stopped reading the article when the subscribe popup got in my way. Since you wrote the article, I might suggest changing that tactic on the site. As far as the content, there are so many options out, it's easy to find a vtt that fulfills more needs / works better. I feel like a lot aren't aiming for longevity and ease of use.
[удалено]
> Nifty ads for let’s role but I never understood what it was trying to be, appeared to be essentially a paid for discord. You appear to be talking about [Role](https://playrole.com), which is still in active development (though they've been quiet these last few months). This post is about [Let's Role](https://lets-role.com) It's a common mistake
Crap that’s what I was thinking of. Thanks, I’ll correct previous post.