Rosterizer discussion-Ask about our battlescribe replacement

[Rosterizer]

Hey there. I, and my small team, wrote Rosterizer. Since it's getting some attention now (despite still being locked down pre-beta), I wanted to reach out to communities of potential users to address any concerns or questions that might exist.

 

To start, a synopsis. Rosterizer is, at its core, a system for maintaining lists of things (assets). These assets can have lots of data attached to them. In game terms, the various kinds of attachments are stats, keywords, descriptions, other assets, metadata, and even rules (instructions that alter parts of the roster based on conditionals). The data that determines an asset's properties (the manifest) is also stored in a user's account, and referenced by the roster. This all functions fairly similarly to BattleScribe, with a few exceptions that streamline the data authoring and a few improvements that sweeten up the list creation.

 

For a short bit of history, I'm good friends with a small game design group that wanted a roster builder. At first I repurposed an existing bespoke builder I'd made for my own game, but quickly realized that having to alter the business logic of an app for every new game rule is a fool's errand and we needed something extensible. At first we looked into writing a layer on top of battlescribe's data format (BS doesn't handle skirmish games and campaign progression well) but we quickly determined that BS's linked XML format was a bit cumbersome to deal with so we wrote our own data format from scratch. We realized very early that, instead of building an app just for a single company, we should really be creating a utility that could be used by a wider audience, without losing the focus on the ease of data authoring that enables rapid prototyping of game systems or homebrew rules.

 

Fast forward eighteen months and we're on the cusp of holding our first closed beta test, in order to determine how close we are to something that will add value to gamers' hobby experience!

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

Out of curiosity how much space does the app take up. Is it pretty close to battlescribe or will the file be larger?

[tychobi]

How extensive will the rules in the app be?  I use battlescribe to keep up with changes and theory craft 40k and hope Rosterizer will be as accurate and useful a tool.

[MARK0SIAN]

What platform(s) will it be available on and is it a subscription, one off payment or free service?

[Rosterizer]

Out of curiosity how much space does the app take up. Is it pretty close to battlescribe or will the file be larger?

 

Unique question, there. :) 

I don't have an exact answer right now because we're not done adding and trimming stuff.

 

That said, the total download for a fresh user is currently 2.5MB (not counting any data that the user has tied to their account, since they're fresh), and most of that is fonts.

 

It runs in a web browser currently; we plan to support an offline mode at launch, and will eventually explore wrapping the app in something like electron (the way Discord did things at first), to have a more truly app-like experience.

 

 

How extensive will the rules in the app be?  I use battlescribe to keep up with changes and theory craft 40k and hope Rosterizer will be as accurate and useful a tool.

 

It'll be as extensive as the data authors make it. We're using the same method of data decoupling as battlescribe; the community will need to maintain any data that they want to see.

Our main benefits will be:

• Not tying the data to a specific repo that crashes for hours after every release (the way AppSpot does)
• Data in a JSON format that can allow multiple simultaneous contributors, which speeds up data release
• A data ingestion pipeline that makes it effortless to switch data sources, from a "community-accepted" file to a homebrew ruleset, to an experimental, to one that you've put extra strategems in yourself, to your crusade manifest, and back again.

 

 

What platform(s) will it be available on and is it a subscription, one off payment or free service?

 

Ideally any platform that can run a webapp. We have prospective beta users who are asking for Opera compliance and even one who wants to try it on their Amazon Fire.

 

The offline mode will be free; our plan is that after the initial download, you can make any rosters and store any data you wish, locally (assuming we get offline mode to work but I'm optimistic, since it's generally considered to be fairly trivial!).

The subscription will only be necessary to do the online things that we'll provide—namely automatic syncing across devices and linking rosters with others (a big focus of our subscription model is a robust metagame community, where users can explore rosters shared by others, copy those rosters, make changes, and re-share, all with a tracked chain of attribution for bragging-rights purposes).

[tychobi]

Gameified list building. Interesting

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

How much of the list building is provided? BattleScribe allows you to build a complete list without having to use any reference material.

[Rosterizer]

How much of the list building is provided? BattleScribe allows you to build a complete list without having to use any reference material.

 

If you mean the conditionals that guide you to the proper choices, that's all up to the data authors. We have a rules system that's far more powerful than what BS offers. When testing the pretty crazy campaign progression in Reign in Hell, we can add assets based on the values of other stats (like BS's options), add text or even other assets to those assets, even track events between games, optionally grant unique titles based on those events, renounce titles to make them no longer unique... The possibilities are vast and we can't wait to see what people come up with.

Edited April 9, 2022 by Rosterizer

[NTaW]

What's the user interface like for generating data and how is it documented? I found that there was a lot of ways to do the same thing with Battlescribe which led to some interesting quirks of data entry. I use BS for a few now defunct games with repositories I've hauled along with every new update and if I switched to Rosterizer I would likely be redoing those repositories myself.

[Rosterizer]

What's the user interface like for generating data and how is it documented? I found that there was a lot of ways to do the same thing with Battlescribe which led to some interesting quirks of data entry. I use BS for a few now defunct games with repositories I've hauled along with every new update and if I switched to Rosterizer I would likely be redoing those repositories myself.

 

 

Ah, nice. We love to hear from data authors, since the app wouldn't function without data.

 

The manifest editor is something we're pretty proud of; one member of our team keeps gushing about how he's more excited to input new systems than he is to make rosters with those systems. 

 

Not sure how much detail you're interested in so I'll start with an overview.

• You'll create classes (templates for the assets that are to be included) and assign them in a hierarchy, which will inform the general shape of the resulting rosters.
• Then you'll populate the classes with the assets that live in them (e.g you've made templates for your Fleet, Ships, Crew, Upgrades, and Weapons; now it's time to create Your Frigates, Destroyers, U-boats, Captains, Gunners, Railguns, etc.) This can be done via the interface, but we also support importing raw data via csv.
• To facilitate creation of the more complex data types, we have two "wizard" interfaces, for stats (the representation of game data) and for rules (conditionals that permit changing things based on criteria)
• Beyond stats and rules, we support keywords, defined subasset inclusion (for named special abilities and whatnot), some general behavioral settings (whether assets can be renamed, are unique, etc.), and a markdown-interpreted text field for general game text.

how is it documented?

We have regularly maintained help files (with glossary) for the manifest editor and for each of the wizards (and for roster editing, as well). We're also exploring a guided "tour" of each module, and plan to provide tooltips on any relevant interface nodes. Eventually, when the UI is locked in, we'll make some short video guides on the topics we get the most questions about during beta.

 

I found that there was a lot of ways to do the same thing with Battlescribe which led to some interesting quirks of data entry.

Due to the nature of creating a tool that can handle anything any arbitrary game system needs, I think it's inevitable to end up with multiple methods of handling the same task. That said, we've created several example manifests that illustrate what we believe to be the recommended way to address various game rule needs. We're also focused on engaging with the community in such a way as to be able to communicate best practices as questions arise. What are some of the stranger quirks have you noticed with BS?

 

 

I use BS for a few now defunct games with repositories I've hauled along with every new update and if I switched to Rosterizer I would likely be redoing those repositories myself.

Which games, if I may inquire?

[Rosterizer]

How extensive will the rules in the app be?  I use battlescribe to keep up with changes and theory craft 40k and hope Rosterizer will be as accurate and useful a tool.

 

You know, I think I might have misinterpreted your question before. I answered you, assuming you were asking about the number of game systems that would be available.

 

If, instead, you were asking about the capabilities of the rules engine inside the manifest; we support getting information about, and changing, almost any aspect of almost anything. We have a rudimentary asset selection algorithm (able to select sub-assets based on simple criteria) and will be bulking that out to be more robust (to allow selecting, for instance: the nth or biggest or sum of available targets, based on provided crieria)

[Cleon]

Does Rosterizer support building a library of pre-built complex units (i.e This is a Deathwatch Killteam I built and like to use as is) to import into new lists, or do you have to chose between re-building the unit each list or always editing old lists?

[Rosterizer]

Does Rosterizer support building a library of pre-built complex units (i.e This is a Deathwatch Killteam I built and like to use as is) to import into new lists, or do you have to chose between re-building the unit each list or always editing old lists?

 

Not yet, but it's been on our wishlist since the very beginning. Since we've been concentrating on stability and rules/conditionals lately, we're still trying to figure out exactly how to handle favorites on the back-end (there's a simple way and a better UX way, and a middle way that I just now thought of).

It's a VERY popular request and definitely high up on our roadmap for inclusion before beta ends.

 

Once we're able to implement friends lists, we're weighing the ability to allow users to browse their friends' favorites, as well. Lots of potential for sharing ideas for loadouts.

[NTaW]

Rosterizer thank you for the bounty of information in your breakdown it all looks quite appealing. I'll reply in line as quote editing is a pain via mobile skin.

 

This is good to hear about your plans for support documentation. Video guides would be icing on the cake if/when the rest comes to fruition.

 

It makes sense that there will always be a few ways to accomplish things in such an open-ended platform. It's been long enough for a whole edition of 40k to pass since I bothered with making my own files for a system so complex. My memories concern creating conditional rules for equipment selection across various unit entries but it's all a bit hazy. Having official examples to reference when generating data would be real handy.

 

7th edition 40k, Shadow War: Armageddon, WEG Star Wars Mini Battles, and AvP The Hunt Begins/Unleashed. If your app supports tracking for campaign systems and is easier/more fun to use than spreadsheets I'd be tempted to use it for a few others as well.

[Rosterizer]

It makes sense that there will always be a few ways to accomplish things in such an open-ended platform. It's been long enough for a whole edition of 40k to pass since I bothered with making my own files for a system so complex. My memories concern creating conditional rules for equipment selection across various unit entries but it's all a bit hazy. Having official examples to reference when generating data would be real handy.

Yeah, the way 40k handles equipment necessitates some crazy rules. "for every five of these, one can have [blah]" isn't trivial to solve. We plan to provide some "recipes" of various rule patterns to kickstart peoples' experience. We also might provide some kind of copy functionality to allow duplicating a rule's pattern to a new unit, for example.

 

\If your app supports tracking for campaign systems and is easier/more fun to use than spreadsheets I'd be tempted to use it for a few others as well.

We definitely hope/think it'll be more fun than a spreadsheet! It seems to perform pretty well for Reign in Hell. Here's a short vid of some of the functionality we've been able to showcase. We plan to get more 40k data in for our beta, (beyond the orks data I copy/pasted from games-workshop), so crusade testing is definitely going to be a big focus.

[Wulf Vengis]

Now, you mentioned homebrew and that has new wondering, will I be able to use Rosterizer to create my own homebrew units, scenarios, factions, rules or even entire game systems?

[Rosterizer]

Hey, sorry about the delay; I didn't get a notification of this reply. :)

Now, you mentioned homebrew and that has new wondering, will I be able to use Rosterizer to create my own homebrew units, scenarios, factions, rules or even entire game systems?

 

Entire game systems: Yes! We wrote Rosterizer from the beginning as our own internal tool for rapidly-prototyping game systems among ourselves. The data editor is very straightforward and contains help files and a glossary for reference, along with a few sample manifests for reverse-engineering purposes.

 

Rules: If you mean specific custom rules for existing manifests, see below. :) If you mean game rules for the systems you author, see above (I'm in the middle of writing out how to handle Reign in Hell's campaign rule that specifies that if a demon gains a title, that title is unique and can't be taken by anyone else BUT can be renounced so it can be taken by someone else (but never again by the demon that renounced it).)

 

Factions: Yes; for large games that have a single faction per manifest like 40k, you can just make a new manifest for your faction. *But* for games that have everything combined together, currently the best way to do that is to copy an existing manifest and make your changes. That's trivially easy to do, but when new versions of the base data are released, you'd need to recreate your changes. In the future, we plan to support manifest dependencies, that will work kind of like applying a patch on top of an existing manifest, so you'd be able to say "use this data but with *these* changes". (this will also be the way to combine different 40k factions for soup play or perhaps to layer in crusade stats onto an otherwise competitive-play manifest)

 

Units: Yes *but* again, the way to really make them work well is to copy a manifest and add your own. We *do* support "make this thing 'custom' if you don't recognize the name" in order to handle data errors, and we plan to generally support just denoting something as a custom asset to allow direct editing but that's a thing for the near future.

 

Scenarios: You'll be able to add notes to detachments (or other assets) or even rosters, that describe the scenario, in the ways mentioned above. You could also define a custom rule, in your copied manifest, that gets information about what's in the army and throws an error (if it's composed incorrectly) or even modifies the roster to fit your scenario guidelines. In the distant future, we plan to support a 'match mode' that will allow multiple players to load their rosters together and take notes as things happen in-game. That will be stored in the manifest, and will also be easy to customize in the ways I described above (once we figure out how to actually do it!).

[Wulf Vengis]

Delay forgiven. We all have lives outside these hallowed halls.

 

This all sounds functionally stupendous, and will be watching for further updates. Thank you for your answers.

Edited April 22, 2022 by Wulf Vengis

[Rosterizer]

Delay forgiven. We all have lives outside these hallowed halls.

 

This all sounds functionally stupendous, and will be watching for further updates. Thank you for your answers.

 

We're all very excited. You'll definitely know when we can open it to the public.

 

(oh, and fwiw, we were able to get that Reign in Hell rule written. Took a little bit of head-scratching but that'll all get easier as everyone gets more familiar with the rule system. And, to be fair, that particular game requirement was a doozy. Here's a screenshot of part of one of the 3 related rules to get that functionality in. :)

[The Unseen]

My only questions; are you planning on this being free to use, subscription, one-time fee, pay for favorites, etc

 

I know I, and many others won't mind spending some money on a good app/offline available roster builder, especially if it's, you know, functional, and then maintained.

[Rosterizer]

My only questions; are you planning on this being free to use, subscription, one-time fee, pay for favorites, etc

 

The plan is to have the local version be free, and the online (device syncing, list sharing, maybe some other features) be a small monthly subscription.

 

 

I know I, and many others won't mind spending some money on a good app/offline available roster builder, especially if it's, you know, functional, and then maintained.

 

Glad to hear it! We feel like the subscription model is the best bet going forward, since it's a small amount, which makes it easy for people to budget (even lapse and return when they want), AND the fact that people will stop paying if we stop delivering a good experience will prompt us to keep up with the maintenance. :)

And of course, aside from that, we have a raft of feature improvements on our wishlist, that we expect to last us for years to come: in-game match note-taking mode, collection tracking, even an event runner with official manifests and special roles for TOs.

[TheNineteenth]

Tried to sign up for your beta; no response.

Interested in authoring Horus Heresy files. 

One weekend event with Excel lists was enough for me. lol

[Rosterizer]

7 hours ago, TheNineteenth said:

Tried to sign up for your beta; no response.

Interested in authoring Horus Heresy files. 

One weekend event with Excel lists was enough for me. lol

We're phasing in testers in order to ensure we can scale correctly (and so bug reports don't swamp us). We're planning on inviting another phase of testers once our current sprint is deployed. I don't see your username in the responses we gathered; If you want to DM me some details, I can check on your survey response to make sure we got it.

We have a few people interested in HH; one is preparing to import all the raw stats as a script. It'll be a good test of our system's ability to allow multiple people to contribute to authoring files simultaneously. :)

[FormelyKnownAsSmashyPants]

Hi. A couple of questions. Provided the author of the data files can manage to do so, would there be a way of using your app to manage a Crusade Roster, adding experience, stat increases, and wargear and such, as well as managing Power Levels and Requisition Points? BattleScribe currently has no such capacity. Secondly, you mentioned that you have a beta that runs in a web browser, is this available for the general public and has anyone written any data files for 40k people could test the program with? My interest is definitely piqued by this and will likely give it a try on release.

 

Edit: just went and read the rest of the thread, looks as though you’ve already answered both questions.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Captain Smashy Pants

[Rosterizer]

10 hours ago, Captain Smashy Pants said:

Hi. A couple of questions. Provided the author of the data files can manage to do so, would there be a way of using your app to manage a Crusade Roster, adding experience, stat increases, and wargear and such, as well as managing Power Levels and Requisition Points? BattleScribe currently has no such capacity. Secondly, you mentioned that you have a beta that runs in a web browser, is this available for the general public and has anyone written any data files for 40k people could test the program with? My interest is definitely piqued by this and will likely give it a try on release.

 

Edit: just went and read the rest of the thread, looks as though you’ve already answered both questions.

Indeed; I've talked about those topics but more has happened recently.

re: crusade, yes. Support for changing stats like xp is trivial, and we also have the ability to key big changes off those stats via programmatic rules. We did something similar for the titles, xp, and evolutions in Reign in Hell, and we're in the midst of putting together a suggested template for something similar for 40k crusade for data authors to follow.

The second point: you read that we're in closed beta; one of the stumbling blocks we hit is that MANY of the testers were surprised that we didn't have (40k) data in to test with, not realizing that this kind of tool is generally a BYO-Data situation; we had data for a number of simpler systems but the testers wanted 40k. So that changed how we approached our beta invites a bit as we (and some of the industrious testers) put in some data to allow regular list builders something to tinker with.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Rosterizer
clarifying the state of test data