Any word on when AON will have the remastered material available?
No. The last update on their Patreon page said they aren't going to put up an estimated date, since the previous estimates have been off.
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From a web developer standpoint, the idea of having the ability to switch back and forth between pre-Remaster and Remaster versions of things that have been printed for both versions sounds really cool ... but may be a bit too much to implement in any reasonable amount of time as a patch to an existing system.
I wonder why they don't put a message on the actual webpage at least saying that they are working on it still(most recent message 10/23). I would never have thought to go to patreon.
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The main issues is that they are really underfunded. It's just pateron and ads to work with as far as hiring people. If they are working as the official place to get information on the game mechanics they should be funded as such and not have to ask for donations
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IMO, Paizo could seriously help them out by handing them a copy of the manuscripts going to the printers so that the AoN devs can get a jump on encoding all of the changes. But the changes are so major that the workload is much greater than standing up AoN in the first place. (And speaking from experience, I might have simply rebuilt the whole thing from scratch since I think that might actually have been less work. Data and information are tricky this way.)
AFAIK they received a copy two months earlier than release, which I think is nearly a few weeks after the first previews of the Remaster were revealed.
The main issues is that they are really underfunded. It's just pateron and ads to work with as far as hiring people. If they are working as the official place to get information on the game mechanics they should be funded as such and not have to ask for donations
To this day I don't know what Paizo was thinking with Pathfinder Nexus. I get the wanted to have their D&D Beyond, but why give yourself the trouble to pay another company for a rules reposity + character creator when you already have Archives of Nethys and Pathbuilder. If anything, pay the guys behind those two to work on their respective projects faster and with more dedication. Archives of Netyhs in particular already works with Paizo, since they have DNAs and other stuff to not filter the content of the books earlier, so this whole situation seems really weird.
In this case though, I think something should have happened to the AoN staff because it is really weird is taking this long. They initially stimated a 2-3 week delay with the Remaster content, and it's not like they are unexperienced programmers that didn't know how much time it would really take for them to entry all the data and program whatever was necesary, so I assume something behind the scenes happened which slowed down everything.
What's the issue with just treating it as a separate page/area? AoN already has PF1 and PF2 and SF as separate areas.
IMO there isn't anything wrong with that. But that isn't what they stated that they were biting off and trying to chew.
I suspect it is to help reduce the accusations of "this is actually a new edition no matter what they say" type of attitude.
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To this day I don't know what Paizo was thinking with Pathfinder Nexus. I get the wanted to have their D&D Beyond, but why give yourself the trouble to pay another company for a rules reposity + character creator when you already have Archives of Nethys and Pathbuilder. If anything, pay the guys behind those two to work on their respective projects faster and with more dedication. Archives of Netyhs in particular already works with Paizo, since they have DNAs and other stuff to not filter the content of the books earlier, so this whole situation seems really weird.
My understanding is that Nexus is a licensed product. Which means Paizo isn't paying them, Nexis is paying Paizo.
In this case though, I think something should have happened to the AoN staff because it is really weird is taking this long. They initially stimated a 2-3 week delay with the Remaster content, and it's not like they are unexperienced programmers that didn't know how much time it would really take for them to entry all the data and program whatever was necesary, so I assume something behind the scenes happened which slowed down everything.
While it's pretty frustrating that the free rules website is still not updated, we can't lose sight of the fact that it is 100% free. I am happy to let them take their time to get it right. Once the framework is built for the remaster toggle, I would expect the next book to go up relatively fast.
We also have to remember that it often takes AoN several weeks to get out books normally. Cult of the Cave Worm came out 8/30, it wasn't on the site until 10/18.
IMO, Paizo could seriously help them out by handing them a copy of the manuscripts going to the printers so that the AoN devs can get a jump on encoding all of the changes. But the changes are so major that the workload is much greater than standing up AoN in the first place. (And speaking from experience, I might have simply rebuilt the whole thing from scratch since I think that might actually have been less work. Data and information are tricky this way.)AFAIK they received a copy two months earlier than release, which I think is nearly a few weeks after the first previews of the Remaster were revealed.
The main issues is that they are really underfunded. It's just pateron and ads to work with as far as hiring people. If they are working as the official place to get information on the game mechanics they should be funded as such and not have to ask for donationsTo this day I don't know what Paizo was thinking with Pathfinder Nexus. I get the wanted to have their D&D Beyond, but why give yourself the trouble to pay another company for a rules reposity + character creator when you already have Archives of Nethys and Pathbuilder. If anything, pay the guys behind those two to work on their respective projects faster and with more dedication. Archives of Netyhs in particular already works with Paizo, since they have DNAs and other stuff to not filter the content of the books earlier, so this whole situation seems really weird.
In this case though, I think something should have happened to the AoN staff because it is really weird is taking this long. They initially stimated a 2-3 week delay with the Remaster content, and it's not like they are unexperienced programmers that didn't know how much time it would really take for them to entry all the data and program whatever was necesary, so I assume something behind the scenes happened which slowed down everything.
I enjoy the way they format their content over both Nethys and Pathbuilder. That and the ability to get the PDF's when I want to from Paizo is also an added security to me should something happen to nexus. The normal PDF's feel a bit cramped for me compared to Nexus. I enjoy having links like Nethys does but formatted in a way more similar to the PDF, with the accompanying imagery and descriptive text not normally in Nethys.
The only real reason I use Pathbuilder 2e is because the mobile option is hands down the best way to play at my IRL games. If I am playing at my computer, I'm likely going to end up playing with Nexus because the layout for the sheet is more appealing to me, and I have the capital to give it while being happy knowing that the money I pay also goes to Paizo.
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On the topic at hand, it is a little disheartening to see how long it's taking to implement the content. I've given to the patreon because they honestly deserve it, but it's starting to cause issues. I've had players who are used to using nethys citing the outdated rules for things, and it's definitely caused some confusion in our foundry game. "What the hell is Courageous March" type moments where they don't realize it's just the new term for Inspire Courage.
Sometimes I think the ambition to make a toggle may have simply been too much compared to creating a new tab for the Remaster. I can see why they might be hesitant to do that though, as its a ton of repeated content if they do. I really hope the manage to make a breakthrough and this doesn't end up becoming a major delay for the site.
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I think "adding the remaster" issue is a significantly more difficult problem than "adding a new book" since now there are going to be two versions of a great number of things, and both should be readily available to find on the Archives of Nethys.
One of the things that AoN has not done very well is "show the previous version of a thing that was changed by errata" which wasn't much of a problem since there wasn't really a reason to do that. But now there is.
One of the things that AoN has not done very well is "show the previous version of a thing that was changed by errata" which wasn't much of a problem since there wasn't really a reason to do that. But now there is.
Yup.
It is amazing how a seemingly small change in requirements like that can cause massive amounts of rework to an existing software system.
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One of the things that AoN has not done very well is "show the previous version of a thing that was changed by errata" which wasn't much of a problem since there wasn't really a reason to do that. But now there is.Yup.
It is amazing how a seemingly small change in requirements like that can cause massive amounts of rework to an existing software system.
Asking a system to do something it was not built to do has been a sure recipe for disaster for decades now.
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I for one am extremely impressed with all the work done on AoN. And I don’t think implementing the changes will be a small task at all.
As for…teething troubles for changed names - I think they will exist likely for years at least. The best thing everyone can do is remain calm and work it out like responsible humans. Personally, my mind boggles at the *amount* of changes I feel have happened, but I’m focussing on each of my characters at a time, and that is significantly easier than being a GM and having to be across all the changes across possibly multiple games while also still running them and being across the changes that impact *each* player.
It does help that I am completely supportive of why Paizo made the changes, and how (and when) they went about it. As the rulings themselves, I’m lucky enough to not having been across the ruleset in the first place, so this is mostly just a catching up to a new new.
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I have always been a firm believer that if Paizo is going to name Archives of Nethys the official rules repository, they should at the very least be kicking a little funding their way. I support AoN on Patreon because it's been such a valuable tool for so many years. It just sucks that fan volunteer work can be co-opted so easily.
It's frankly getting a little embarrassing that the remaster update is taking so long. With no estimate in sight and sparse status updates. AoN has had the books for 3 months now. Foundry and Pathbuilder had updates out mere weeks after the official releases.
I am sympathetic to the developers doing this in their free time and it's truly not an important issue overall. I'm just baffled.
The people at AoN also said that this has made them realize that they probably need to get some more volunteers after this because they really were just barely able to keep up with regular release schedule and that they're really not capable of dealing with any unexpected additional things (even ignoring stuff like this dropping at a really poor time of year for them where they had less time to dedicate to AoN); so I imagine even in (very unlikely) case that another massive thing like this happens again the situation still won't be quite as bad, it's just that right now moving manpower away from the remaster to train new people would slow down the release, not speed it up.
Likewise, they said that to help speed up the release they're not going to go through and have all the hyperlinks set up at the same time as the rules this time just to help have it release a bit earlier.