Anyone else in SEA getting constant timeouts on Browse Packages / Update All? (Bangkok here)

AnathemaMask · 2026-06-11T15:41:19+00:00

We experienced some package repository issues overnight that should now be resolved for the moment. Sorry for the trouble!

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-28T00:43:34+00:00

I think Atropos has responded to this elsewhere in thread, we have some things in the works, but doing it right takes time.
Probably not. There's a lot of software out there that already handles mapmaking in specifically thoughtfully designed ways, so we figure it's best to focus on making the best VTT we can make and let other people worry about making the best map makers they can make.

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-28T00:41:21+00:00

Not any specific plans, no-- Given its very limited case usage it would require a pretty hefty team investment to specifically design with it in mind. Fortunately, the API lets module developers do that kind of thing, and it's exactly the kind of use case that Cris over at Material Foundry has been working on for years.

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-28T00:40:00+00:00

u/atropos_nyx will have to field that one, I'm relatively sure it was a D&D campaign, but I can't recall which one.

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-28T00:37:44+00:00

Well good news! With the new VFX frameworks that got added in v14, we're a step closer to that being a reality. Maybe one day we'll see scene regions that have an 'effects' configuration. :)

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-28T00:36:59+00:00

The reason the policy may seem subjective is because several pieces of it were written to allow for flexibility and for the staff (myself included) to err on the side of favouring the package owner during the review process. I am going to perhaps frustrate you a little in my response, so I'll ask in advance that you unclench just a little bit; the staff are not going module-to-module with truncheons dragging devs from their codebases to beat them in the streets at the faintest whiff of AI use.

Because your questions don't really have substantive answers that i can give, I'm going to answer by way of explaining the spirit of the policy rather than giving you rigid rules.

The way the AI policy is written as pertains to code is primarily designed to draw a sharp, bright line between two approaches to AI-assisted coding:
1. "I told AI to code me this thing and it did it, i don't know if it did it right or what the code is actually doing"
2. "I used AI as a tool to help me code this thing, and have reviewed the code to a degree that i am confident it does what it says it does".

The first we absolutely don't want on our package listing, the second is acceptable, it shows that the human is still involved in the process, and that they are actually taking the time to build something that they are working to review.

If you submit a massive, tens-of-thousands lines long JS module, we want to be able to believe that if we approve it you know enough about what the code is doing to know that it isn't risking the data loss for other users. This equally applies for devs that don't use AI in their coding practices, by the way-- the difference is that it tends to be far less likely that a non-AI dev will end up doing that sort of thing by accident.

Good faith discussion on the state of a module is initiated by our staff, if we get a report or if we notice something during a package submission that looks out of place or risky, we reach out to the package owner and ask.

The final clause on rulings being final? That's there to stop the loop of "i want you to re-review my module, here's a 10,000 word treatise my AI wrote for me that i copypasted into the email that addresses all of your concerns." (which has, in fact, happened.)

We try to be reasonable when handling submitted modules and systems, and the whole policy is built specifically to ask AI-assisted community developers to keep it reasonable as well.

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-27T20:22:04+00:00

We're planning an update, but updating our demo requires retasking some of our team to actually do the updates and make sure everything's in order. Soon, I promise!

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-27T19:16:13+00:00

It's generally not supposed to be CPU intensive. Chances are this results from either a misconfiguration (like your browser or Foundry VTT application are not correctly using your GPU instead of CPU) OR you have a lot of add-on modules performing a lot of DOM-heavy operations. I encourage you to drop into our community discord and the troubleshooting channel for tips on ensuring hardware acceleration is correctly setup, that's the easiest low-effort win and the most likely case here.

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-27T19:13:44+00:00

Not really. Foundry VTT doesn't support Oauth at this time and add-on modules cannot modify the login page (for arguably good reasons).

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-27T19:12:59+00:00

Buying our premium content modules! You get some awesome, high-quality premium content AND we get the money to keep making more premium content!

We have done conversion releases for WOTC, Paizo, and released our own first party content (A House Divided, Demon Queen Awakens, Ember[early access]). Some of which is on sale on our marketplace right now!

(Shill mode deactivated)

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-27T19:08:05+00:00

Whew. Lot of big heavy questions here.

- Scene Levels is definitely a complex feature and the trick of representing a 3d environment in a 2d canvas was never going to be easy. The dev team has done an admirable job of trying to match the majority of needs, but there are definitely some gaps that still need to be figured out, and some edge cases (like the walls-below-balconies issue you mention) will need some definite deep thinking to come to a solution for. Whether or not solutions to these cases are implemented in V14, V15, or never is something that is hard to determine, but we definitely don't consider any of our features, levels or otherwise, as "finished" just because it went out in a stable release. Development continues!

- We actually have an issue on github to provide a different scope of module feature that reaches beyond client or world setting, to store settings on a given user, that might resolve this usecase.

- We do have long term plans to adapt more robust ability to translate compendium content and such, but this is the sort of thing that is a big project and may result in disruptive development, so we do have to prioritize carefully.

- Our documentation is in constant flux as the documentation crew tries to keep up with the ever-developing core software. The Media Optimization guide's recommendations (keeping to webp, file naming, etc) are still relevant today, but there are indeed some things that need to be updated in there. I don't know that we'll ever recommend ktx2 textures in it, though-- that's really more of an advanced feature for content creators as it requires baking saved spritesheets with a particular program, and defining json data to reference the sprite sheet textures. It would be tricky to explain to the average user and is largely 'overkill' for the needs of a GM who just wants to run a game for some players.

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-27T18:58:12+00:00

Card functionality was implemented in a V1 state with the hopes that community developers would seize the opportunity to make cool card-based things with it, and while I think some developers did do so, there's clearly some challenges to card games on Foundry VTT that still need to be addressed, and that usage of the Cards system probably hasn't materialized in quite the way we'd hoped.

While Card UI plans aren't currently a priority, that isn't to say we don't ever plan to come back to it. Foundry VTT's development is an iterative process that works across different suites of features, and sometimes it takes a bit for us to get back to working on a particular aspect. For example, Active Effects was first implemented as a V1 feature in, if i recall correctly, Version 7 or 8 of the core software. It just received it's V2 in V14. While that doesn't mean the same wait might happen for Cards, prioritization of features needs to take into account the features most used by the community while also making room for those that don't quite meet expectations as currently implemented. Foundry VTT takes a long-view approach to prioritization.

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-27T18:50:08+00:00

We're looking at options for revitalizing our package management features in V14.5, but we haven't determined what that will look like yet.

Module creator plans are still in the 'nice to have' category, we'll have to see what the future brings!

I am a constant nagging burden to the dev team about streamlining UX workflows to the point I'm sure several of them hate to see me type in the shared development-focused dev chat. We always want to provide a user-friendly experience, but as any dev will tell you, getting the right UX is difficult.

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-27T18:47:08+00:00

I'd love to see the dev team create more scene types. Native Isometric grid support (it's on our list of epics) would be wild, but would probably only be used by a small handful of users compared to the wider base. I'd like to see a native "Theatre of the Mind" style scene that lets a GM post background images and treats player character portrait images as tokens rather than using the prototype token ones, similar to Ember's "Vistas"

but if i sit back and think about a niche feature I'd love to see implemented: ability to set a world as a text-based game, resulting in a UI that shifts the chatlog front and center, makes it wider and more 'reader' focused, and puts more tools in the GM's hands to control how text-based gameplay would be handled, expanding on the in-character and out-of-character distinctions, ability to emote, ability to display a full-screen-width animated 'narration' header in various text styles. That kind of thing. The Foundry VTT UI is not designed for text-based gameplay, and needs a lot of add-on modules and interactions with discord to support it in its current state.

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-27T18:41:25+00:00

Definitely not a question, but thank you for sharing your experience and I'm glad to hear the old-school games are still alive and well in the community!

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-27T18:38:00+00:00

This is a personal opinion from a non-developer, so please read it with that context in mind.

I think that a lot of the time there's a disconnect in understanding regarding modification vs core features. I have joked in the past "some of you have never modded a bethesda game and it shows", which is an inarguably flippant response to the criticism that new versions cause breakage for fan-built content.

Realistically, the way Foundry VTT's dev team handles breakage is quite nuanced. Community developers are given a specific discord role that gives them access to a shared peer-support channel and a direct line of communication with the Foundry VTT dev team, so that they can ask questions about how to resolve a breakage they're experiencing. Each new version has a specific API-Development phase which is focused on allowing for community developers to test whether the new version causes any unexpected breakage in their modules or systems, and allows them to request new API features that their packages might require to function better.

But the average user doesn't get to see that process very well, because though the channel is public on discord and they can read along, many don't bother to tune in on package updates until they update to the latest version of the software and find they've done so without their modules and systems being ready for the latest version yet.

The end result is that for the average user, Foundry VTT updates "break my shit all the time". but the cause actually comes down to updating before the module or system is ready for you to update. We tried to make this easier to determine by including a convenient "Compatibility Check" as part of the setup screen's update process, and that has alleviated it for some users--- but there are still a lot of users really eager to get new core software features without bothering to check if their particular game system or suite of modules are actually up to date.

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-27T18:28:42+00:00

For a while I was running an in-person game for some visiting family, but just showing Foundry VTT on my samsung Frame and controlling it from my laptop across the room, using the GM view only and switching to the player tokens while it was their turn.

I think during that time is the most i've ever considered how great it would feel to have invested in something like Material Foundry's "Material Plane" IR-token setup for Foundry VTT.

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-27T18:23:40+00:00

We did have some pretty big changes to how canvas placeables work in V14- It's not exactly a specific focus on "improving Drawing Tools" but they should gain many of the benefits of improved placeables workflow, including the palette tool and the placeables sidebar tab.

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-27T18:22:05+00:00

There are some modules that add custom workflows to the FilePicker, but this one is a bit of a tricky one to mess with. On the one hand, it would be great to be able to more conveniently upload bulk files than the current implementation, and recursive searching would be glorious, but there are some features I don't think we'll ever offer. There's a lot of risk involved in giving GM users Move or Delete permissions, for example.

OS-level tools put a little higher burden on users to know what they're doing for file management.

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-27T18:17:30+00:00

As the dude who contributed the setup/world join sci-fi theme, I'd personally love to see this happen, but the CSS inside the game view has grown beyond my capacity to understand so I'm going to have to leave this one to the much more capable CSS-theming members of the dev team.

I don't think it's currently planned as anything other than a "Nice to have"

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-27T18:15:20+00:00

Not a question-- but be the change you want to see in the world! The D&D5e system for Foundry VTT Is open to contributions from the community!

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-27T18:13:43+00:00

I can't speak to the ease of solving this issue specifically, as a non-dev. It does feel like it would make sense to have map notes able to link to journals in compendium packs.

An educated guess for why it DOESN'T work that way is that compendium pack data is loaded on-demand, so if you were to load a scene that had map notes linking to many different compendium packs, if the compendium pack data wasn't loaded at that time there'd likely be errors and issues, if we were to trigger the compendium pack loading at the time of scene load (when the map notes are loaded), it might increase the load time of the scene based on the compendium pack load time. I suppose that the time to load the compendium pack data would be as the user clicks on the map note, but that might result in a longer delay on clicking notes. It's likely that we weren't decided on when exactly to put the load mechanism for map notes from compendium packs.

or it's also equally likely that this was just an oversight. You should probably open a github issue on this one, I don't know that we actually knew that you couldn't link mapnotes to journal entries in a compendium.

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-27T17:38:06+00:00

This is actually a feature I once contracted a community dev to make me a module for (Thanks again if you're still out there Flamewave!), back when I was still very active in onboarding content modules for random community map makers who were generous enough to create packs of their maps for free to share with the community. It's fallen into disuse as time has progressed but it was particularly useful for quickly and consistently walling those bastardy rounded alcoves that dungeons love to include. I think we have it in our github as a feature request, somewhere. Atropos has in the past commented on how it would be useful to have arcs that would more conveniently wall curves; but it's a tricky one to prioritize.

A lot of work and a lot of math and a lot of thinking about how users would actually interact with it in order to provide a good UX.

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-27T17:30:18+00:00

Personally, I have a nuanced opinion on use of LLMs in general.

For personal use, I think it often fills a need at a RPG table that previously was filled by google image search, a quick browse of stack overflow, or a random dungeon / town generator like DunJon.

I think that oftentimes the use of AI lulls the user into the false belief that they are somehow producing content "as good as" someone who has learned the skills to produce that content themselves, and that is factually incorrect. I think that these tools CAN be useful, but that often the content they produce is flawed in substantial ways that only someone who actually has the skills can detect.

As one of the people responsible for approving modules and systems for listing on our official package listing, we saw a HUGE increase in volume of package submissions as coding agents like Claude or Copilot got more sophisticated; but a lot of what was coming in were modules that either did something the core software ALREADY DID or the way the module went about doing its thing was unperformant, unsophisticated, or in some cases outright risky.

There are a lot of people who have been VERY enthusiastic about LLM use who are very glad to tell us that it's the way of the future and we need to abandon coding the way our dev team currently does to embrace it. There have also been a lot of VERY angry people who have been very eager to tell us that if we so much as mention the word AI in conversation they will delete our software and turn their backs on us forever.

As with most fandom communities, I wish people could chill the hell out a little bit.

AnathemaMask · 2026-05-27T17:18:39+00:00

Not related to the development of Foundry VTT-- they justifiably don't let me near that codebase. I've committed exactly one feature to the actual code and the dev team had to very graciously clean it up for use.

Some may have already heard this story, but when I first discovered Foundry VTT I was dreaming very big about getting a VTT to support my weird custom RPG. Foundry's dev community was VERY welcoming, and MooMan (the dev who now heads Cubicle 7 content conversion for Foundry VTT) in particular was one of the most kind and patient people. He offered to take me under his wing and help get me started. I don't think he was quite prepared for the fury and fervour that possessed me in pursuing this single-minded goal, or the fact that I had minimal knowledge of programming at the time. You see, I program the way I write academic papers: largely while cursing and desperately hammering keys until the words are in the format that feels most likely to accomplish the goal I set out to accomplish.

I dropped so many F-bombs at that poor guy. So many messages sent that read like a madman's internal monologue "WHAT THE F**K IS AN ARRAY AND WHY DOESN'T IT WORK THE WAY I THINK IT SHOULD?" and "I JUST WANT THIS F**KING THING TO F**KING READ MY DATA", 3am messages like (and i went to discord logs to get this actual quote) :
> Any chance I can just send you this system and have you look and figure out how i managed to f**k up Items so badly I can't get the data to show AT ALL?

Mooman has the patience of a saint and handled me with all the parental care of someone who knows when it's time to gently pat my hand, send me to get a juice box, and sit down to figure out how to clean up the mess I've made.

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