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Episode 18: Just Roll Better!
121 Plays7 months ago
A long time ago… in a windy city, far, far away… Your host Nick Sperry is joined by Roll Better and Kuat Print Yards creator, Brian Gambrell! The two talk about tournament organizing, X-Wing, and more!
Check out Brian's Kuat Print Yards 3D models: https://www.printables.com/@KuatPrintYards_52767/store
Stay up to date on X-Wing Alliance announcements in the 2.5 Edition Discord server: https://discord.gg/x-wing
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Transcript
Introduction and Overview
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to the 312 Squadron podcast. My name is Nick Sperry, and I am pleased to introduce b Brian Gambrel, the architect behind the tournament organizing software. I'm going to re-say that line. The architect behind the tournament organizing software. Roll better. He is a guest for us this episode. Brian, thanks so much for joining me. My pleasure. Glad to be here. Yeah, this is um ah the third installment of what we've been calling our interview series. I've had an opportunity to pull some folks from different parts of the community and chat with them and ask them some questions.
Recording Challenges and Personal Life
00:00:37
Speaker
In the XWA chat, you had mentioned it'd be cool to be on a on a podcast and talk about roll better. like Dude, I would love to do that. i mean It didn't cross my mind only because there's a million things going on for both of us right now. and
00:00:49
Speaker
um So I was like, let's do it. And we made it happen. And this recording is happening on a day that it shouldn't, you know, I scheduled you for Thursday and I thought it was today on a Tuesday and you were still willing to accommodate. So I do appreciate you ah getting permission to be able to hop on with me for this. All good. You're not the first podcaster I've suggested ah doing an interview with. You're just the first one who's actually been brave enough to accept it. So I i appreciate it. Yeah, that that kind of blows my mind. And we're going to prove everybody ah you know wrong as to why you know they they should have done that sooner. Or right. Or right. Hopefully not right.
00:01:24
Speaker
yeah Yeah, no, we're not going to prove them right. We're good. So there's a lot of first of all, we haven't released a podcast episode in a few weeks. And a lot has happened in the world of of Xwing. Brian, I don't know exactly what capacity what's happened. well I don't know what capacity you play um Xwing ah yourself. I mean, being so involved with the back end for tournament organizing stuff like for for roll better. I think you would. But how much do you play? And I wish I wish I played. i I have a two year old and a five month old. So the playtime is it's at an all time low. Yeah, it's not it's not happened as much as I'd like it to happen. I did teach a neighbor and we we moved to a new neighborhood in October and I taught a neighbor how to
X-Wing's Appeal and Community Resilience
00:02:07
Speaker
play. And he he left the first game we played. Just he said, I'm addicted. And I was like, oh, it's that's what it'll do to you. Yeah. And that was that was honestly the first game of X when I played it. Oh, man, like.
00:02:19
Speaker
maybe like over a year, honestly, it may have been a year and a half that like, I don't, I just don't play X-wing. It's just so hard in this stage of life with everything we got going on. I mean, I'm potty training a two year old right now. So yeah, it's not as much time as I'd love, but man, I still love the game and and getting to play with my neighbor a couple of weeks ago was just like that reminder of, of how solid of a game that it is and whatever variant, you know, you're playing. Oh, and I would think that you would have to love the game of X-Wing to do something like roll better. And we're going to dive into all of that and, you know, kind of the coming of coming of roll better and everything like that. But, you know, ah obviously we're in this period of limbo ah ah with X-Wing where
00:02:59
Speaker
um There's a lot of exciting things that you and I are directly involved in with X-Wing Alliance, but there's just also a lot of folks in their own respective communities that are just kind of deflated or or confused and don't really know what's next because some folks just got into the game recently, right? And I can't really, I don't even want to wrap my head around what it would feel like to be somebody in that position who just bought in and found out that their game's not being supported anymore by the people that sold it to them. you know like what are what are your What have you noticed from behaviors and attitudes um ah ah online? um Because I feel like recently a lot more people are kind of on edge about things, and you know what have you noticed? I've noticed the people who have been sort of, you know, feel like they've in hindsight been shot calling something like this for a while, and the confirmation bias is making them
00:03:52
Speaker
go crazy. I don't think it was a hard thing to see, but there's a lot of people, you know, well, I've been pleasantly surprised by how few people have been saying the game is dead. um i think I think the opportunity that exists right now to turn X-Wing into the best miniatures community in the world, I think, is is laid before us. It's it's almost like the the handcuffs have been taken off. and so I'm excited to see what becomes of it. There's good examples in the gaming community of successes with Legacy Groups. I think you have one of the most interesting IPs and one of the most interesting rules. ah The best dog fighting game I think that's ever been created for you know a tabletop.
00:04:43
Speaker
It has so much, it just, the I mean, the community, the X-Men community is so passionate. That's, that's honestly what got me into the game.
Brian's Journey and Contributions to X-Wing
00:04:50
Speaker
I went down to Gigabytes Cafe in Marietta, um, back in 2019, I think. Uh, and, or maybe it was, it was 2020, 2020, I don't remember. 2020, 2021, somewhere in there, man, when you're, when you have children, you don't remember anything. Uh, yeah, I met people like, uh, Andrew Lippins and Charles Holcomb. I don't know if you, those names ring a bell. Yeah. Pym. Pym and Good old Pym miniatures. And I mean, those are the guys who taught me how to play X-wing. And so it was just so much fun to go and see them, you know, in play. And, uh, you know, once the kid, once kids started coming along, kind of tapered off, but, uh, just, just great people. And then getting exposed to the wider X-wing community.
00:05:37
Speaker
online, especially during the pandemic, um, starting up quad print yards and just the amazing, passionate support that like players gave me. I had some customers on for quad print yards that were just so encouraging. So such big fans and just, I really do like, it's the, it's really the community to me that gives me hope that X-wing has a really bright future. And so, you know, no one's going to be able to convince, you know, I'm not shutting down a little better. I'm not hedging my bets. Like, you know
00:06:08
Speaker
Yeah, I hope not. I think i think the future is right. Yeah, I agree. And you know and before, you know you had mentioned co-op print yards, and i'm my affiliation and being around X-Wing and GSP, you know I know that name very well. And I'm about to ask you about that. But just you know to go into the XWA thing really quick, You know, for those that don't know, Brian and I are both heavily involved in um the X-Wing Alliance and two very different kind of heavily for me. you You probably more so in a bit. We'll get there for you. Good for you right now. You're not as busy as I am, but you you might be more busy later. um
00:06:44
Speaker
That's not a threat, by the way, it might sound like it, but like, you know, we both have roles in this project. And, you know, I think it's important. ah People haven't heard from us on our own podcast, 312 about like what the XWA is. So I'm just going to give you guys a quick rundown on what I'm doing for it. um The X-Wing Alliance is a community led effort to continue the game of X-Wing moving forward from all sides of all aspects from OP to points to design, just just the livelihood and sustainability of the game is in our best interest moving forward. And we are going to primarily focus on the biggest changes after Adapticon 2025 when OP support is officially ended for X-Wing. But there's a lot of work that we're doing ah in the meantime, and I'm doing a lot of PR and communication stuff because I'm quote unquote, the PR communications person for XWA and
00:07:36
Speaker
jumping on podcasts and just kind of making sure I represent our efforts and what we're all trying to do as a group in the best possible way while also being open and transparent and and answering questions. and It's been a lot of fun, but it's been a lot of work. and um you know Brian, you're in the server as well with XWA. I guess I'll just ask you that now because we're on the topic. like what are your Where do you see yourself kind of fitting into XWA in the next year and beyond? Yeah, I think I was the last person that sneaked into the discord at the very end before they like. And that was because, you know, on my, I actually, I at everyone on my discord for role better. It was like, if anyone's handed out invites, I'll take one. And.
00:08:24
Speaker
So in in my day job, I'm a i'm a lead software engineer at a company called Chick-fil-A. Don't know if you've heard of it. Oh, yeah. They're never able to. You're not working on Sundays. That's all I know. That's right. Well, maybe not on and maybe not on chicken, but on ah um roll better you know every now and then, maybe. um So you know something about Chick-fil-A is there's a really big emphasis on organizational leadership there. ah They're very good at leadership development. um I consider myself a pretty good product developer, not just like on the engineering side of like being able to execute and make it happen, but on the product side. like I don't mean design. I'm a terrible designer. ah That's why Rollbetter is just a bootstrap website, because I'm terrible at design. But from a product perspective of what what features do I build, um what is the path to a viable product, how do you get to something that's going to
00:09:24
Speaker
I don't want to say beat the competition, but how do you just how do you make something that users love? And there's a process there. And so, you know, i'd I would love to quit my day job and do roll better full time. and And I have a game plan on how to make that happen. ah we can talk about that later. But I just really enjoy it's something I learned when I was doing quad print yards was I just love making products. And I love I love to see when someone is like really passionate and really loves when you when you meet someone's need with something you've made, you know, and i I'm sure you give me this is your product right here. I mean, this podcast is your product. And I'm sure you can understand kind of what I'm saying here is
00:10:01
Speaker
when you make something and you kind of put it out into the world and someone that you don't know, finds it and then they enjoy it and it just, it pleases them. and And then they tell you, it's like, there's just, there's something, there's nothing really else quite like that as, as a creator. And that is famous a little bit, there's a little bit of fame and aspects involved there. Maybe, maybe in the X-Men community, people know who I am, but, uh, But yeah, I think so. So anyways, having said that product development, organizational leadership, and I'm not saying I'm great. I'm not, I'm not saying I'm like the best person in the world at either of those, but I do feel like I have something to offer there. And so I'm not necessarily saying I'm going to step up and try to be like CEO or on a council, but I do think I can offer a good voice on the technology side of how can technology help the XWA achieve some of its goals? um How can,
00:10:54
Speaker
How can the XWA lead a community in a way that is going to be effective? Something that I, you know, for example, something that I've tried to do is I've noticed like, like there's a lot of hot topics in X-Wing as far as rules and road and points and things like that, right? And at the end of the day, all of those decisions, I view them really as tactical decisions. And what I mean by that is, you know, when you're, when you're trying to lead something, you really, and and I try to lay this out in the discord, that you you have vision, was vision is at the top, right? Vision. And then you have outcomes. And then you have strategy and tactics. And I stole that from a coworker of mine named Corrigan. He's wonderful Corrigan Brown.
00:11:38
Speaker
Cheers, Gorgon. Cheers. I'm not going to steal that without giving credit. But yeah that's something that he came up with that I found very helpful for sort of thinking about how do you create alignment among amongst a lot a large group of people. And when you when you focus on should we be 20 points or 200 points, that's so down at the tactical level, if you and and people get really heated in their disagreements about things like that. But when you go up to the vision level, and you say, what, what, what do we believe in? What future are we all trying to create together? We're trying to create a healthy, diverse, global community that's unified around the best dogfighting tabletop game ever created. Is there any X-Wing player on the planet who disagrees with that vision? I'm not saying that's the XWA's vision, by the way. I'm not saying that is. well No, I mean, I can say that that's the XWA's vision is to try to bring as many people together to keep playing X-Wing as possible and to to enjoy it playing X-Wing.
00:12:30
Speaker
And so like, that's the future we all believe in. So let's start there. Let's create alignment and unity around that. And let's talk about the outcomes. We want to see a massive tournament in 2026 and beyond. We want to see tournament tenants go up. We want to see a healthy meta. You know, we want to see. You know, maybe OP support and, you know, some sort of like HoTAC scenarios, I don't know, whatever, right? There's, there's certain outcomes we can say, these are the outcomes we think gets us to that healthy worldwide community around this game. And then you get into the strategies. Okay. Well, how do we do that? Right. And at the very bottom, you have the, well, to want to, you know, someone's going to make a decision about points and that's tactical. Right. And so I hope that we can all unify around the things that really bring us together.
00:13:12
Speaker
about yeah the the game that we enjoy and the future we're trying to create for it. I hope we can unify around that and and not get stuck down at these, you know. these lower level discussions. they They need to happen, and they'll happen, and they're important, and we'll figure it out. But like let's not lose sight of, we have so much more that we agree on and that we want for this community than we don't. Yeah, absolutely. And i for those that are listening, he didn't read from a teleprompter there at all. It's literally all just officer from the heart. So you know it's ah that was good, Brian. i mean i I agree with a lot of that. i I agree with all of it, really, essentially. And there is more opportunity than we've ever had. We're not a beholden to.
00:13:48
Speaker
you know, neglect or or anything anymore. You know, when you have somebody like AMG, which I'm not going to go into a deep dive and ranting about AMG, but when you just don't have ah a studio that pays attention to you and and really shows a lot of effort or care for whatever reason, business reason aside, you know, it's it stinks because you you feel hamstrung and that you there's a lot of limitations. And now the limitations, a lot of them have been dropped and, um you know, It's in our best. And if no one's going to step up to keep the game going, it's not going to keep going. And it's it's really cool to see everybody kind of unify around that purpose. And we'll we'll see what comes of it. You know, there's a lot of question marks that people have just in general. And we'll answer as many of those as we can in the next several months. and
00:14:33
Speaker
Let's ah but let's talk about let's talk about a roll better co-op print yards. Let's let's dive in. Brian, you you talked about what you do for work. You you alluded to having two kids, one pretty newborn, five months is pretty young. um Congratulations. And that's also you must be tired. um i will I'll be thinking of you. um But what what what's something that you feel Is like what's like, ah you know those like really lame corporate intros like give me an interesting fact about yourself that maybe people don't know about you that Besides your your brains behind technology and co-op print yards and all that and um i've I'm like I call myself a serial hobbyist I I have this thing where I'll find a hobby and I will dive as deep as possible in it in a very short amount of time and learn as much about as possible and I'll like
00:15:26
Speaker
basically changed my lifestyle to accommodate it. And then eventually ah it reaches a breaking point where I realize that it's taken over my life and I and i have to set some boundaries and i and I sort of move on and then you know something else catches my eye. and then i you know I've done so you know day trading, I've ah raised ant colonies from Queens. Um, I taught myself how to play the violin. Um, I just, I mean, I'm just like all over the place. Um, you know, I did, I did X x- wing came along and then quadpreneurs came along and now roll better. And so like, it's just, it's just like a never ending stream of hobbies. So, um, and I don't know if you want to know anything about ants, but I know way too much about you. Oh, that's, that's, that's amazing. That's um,
00:16:06
Speaker
That's that's great. I remember when I interviewed Will Schick with AMG and he had mentioned that he had mentioned with and Michael plumber and Sorry, his name escaped me for a second and they were giving us fun facts that it was just blew me away when I was like what it was like in a rock band the other one was like a professional juggler like really kind of juggling and it's like, you know, you would never guess these things it's just super fun to talk about that stuff because you know, I We get so locked into what we do with what people know that we do that it's like you kind of almost forget that you're human. It's a weird thing to say. I feel that way. Sometimes we just kind of like you're the role better guy. You're like people just messaging and be like, there's a problem with this.
The Evolution of Roll Better Software
00:16:44
Speaker
And it's like the only thing they see you in that is that tunnel. Hell, when I'm going through our DMs, I was I was messaging you about some bugger feature or whatever yeah in the past. Yeah. Right. And it's just kind of funny to to think about. But, you know, it's it's important to kind of open that up and.
00:16:59
Speaker
And a lot of people know know the work that you have produced, but they don't know you. And so hopefully one of the goals of this conversation is for people to to get to know kind of behind the curtains and behind the scenes as to like the who, behind the what. On Roll Better itself, Now, um i you are aware of TabletopTO and the whole legacy of TabletopTO. And obviously, when which was an amazing resource um ah we that we all used for X-Wing years ago. And when we found out that that was being kind of hung up and walked away from, which you know I understand why, there was kind of a glaring need. And I feel like you kind of factor you did factor into that. So I just want to throw it to you and kind of walk me through how Roll Better kind of came to be.
00:17:45
Speaker
So yeah, there is there was that announcement that i the guy who made it, he made. And I mean, honestly, as soon as I saw the announcement, i just my the gear started turning. you know I'm a full stack web developer. I do Android ah mobile stuff. I've done cloud architecture. like i I have a pretty wide ranging skill set on the software side. And I was like, man, I could i could i knew I could make this happen. Um, I had heard about the negative experiences at the Atlanta, like the Atlanta system open a long time ago where like everything just stopped working. I've heard things about BCP. Um, not to, I'm not bashing this. off i've heard I've just heard stories in the community. yeah but i've experienced it firsthand Yeah. Like we went to this tournament and nothing worked. And yeah. Um, and I, and I, every time I would hear a story like that, I would think like, well, if I was making it, it wouldn't do that. Cause I actually know how to do cloud architecture, but.
00:18:40
Speaker
which yeah, but well I can talk about that later with Roll Better and how it's architected. I don't think anyone who cares, but just know that it's pretty solid. So I was actually at, I made it to the Nova Open in 2022. That was honestly, that was the that was the largest X-Wing tournament I had been to. And there were so many interesting nuances about that event with like internet ah internet access was such an interesting part of that. i I watching the judges and how they were administering the event and watching how like, just watching it all go down and just thinking, man, there's gotta to be, there's so many problems, little problems here that you could solve that would make this event just run so much smoother. And not as a critique to tabletop.to, but you know, at that Nova, like I knew, like it was shutting down in like October or November, I can't remember, right?
00:19:34
Speaker
So I talked to the tournament organizer for Nova and I said, Hey, I'm thinking about making a replacement for tabletop.to. Could you be one of the people who like bait like alpha test it for me? Could you just like join this discord and like help? Just give me some feedback. And and he said, yes. And, uh, had plenty of connections through a team junkyard used to be called like Java junkyard. I don't know if you're familiar with them. They ran a lot of online tournaments during COVID for X wing. I did a lot of price for them with quad print yards, uh, really creative, amazing events. Uh, a bunch of really passionate guys.
00:20:10
Speaker
I loved working with them. So I just, I just had access to a lot of people in the community that had something to say about tournament organization. And it just, it just felt like and in, in quat print yard at that time was sort of a victim of its own success. Uh, I was spending literally every moment of my free time 3d printing and packing and shipping orders. It was, it was crazy. And, um, and there was also a little, uh, the DMCA take down order that I got from Disney. Uh, let's not talk about that, but. Uh, yeah, I had to, uh, had to close up and I had to, but I decided that it was time. It was time to close up shop. I knew long-term a software product would be a lot more sustainable for my like daily life. And so.
00:20:50
Speaker
Yeah, the start kind of Aligned and I took a shot at it. And there were some other platforms that sprung up at the same time from other communities, like Legion and Armada, and some of the other ones that kind of got left behind in the table ho tea tabletop tabletop.to. And the dust there they got, you know, so there's these people kind of emerged from these communities to try to take a shot at making it and I and i was one of them and I'm, you know, I'm glad I I'm glad that we've landed where we've landed and and I've seen the success I've seen, but yeah, that's, that's kind of how it started. And, uh, sure but there now we're here. Hosted, hosted new excellent worlds and a lot of other major events and still going strong.
00:21:30
Speaker
it's It is amazing when you think about just how much the community has been relied on to keep the game of X-Wing going during the FFG and especially the AMG eras of X-Wing where tournament organizing software community driven with you and roll better, for example, and then squad builders for the longest time have yeah only ever really reliably been Yasby and Launch Bay are the two primary ones with Andre Linde with Launch Bay and Stephen Kim with Raythos. you you know you You put together roll better in my eyes and what felt very quickly. I know that there was a lot of you know planning and stuff that goes into getting it right. That's something that was ready for the public very quickly. And Steven with Yazbee,
00:22:13
Speaker
In terms of the stream overlay, which is also a tabletop to as a streamer, I use overlay all the time, like religiously. It's like, I know it so well. And that was gone. The stream overlay was was sunset with tabletop to you as well. And Steven made that. And so, you know, I think you guys are really, really are unsung heroes of being able to kind of not yeah We didn't have a really much of a beat skipped. like We saw it happening. It happened. There was a few weeks where a little bit of limbo could have been way worse. It could have just been gone for good or it could have been months. um But you kind of you guys rose to the occasion and we really do. I do personally myself and the whole community like really do appreciate that you were willing from the get-go to take this on. and um It's something that you know and that you're passionate about, which I think makes it easier right to be able to sustainably do.
00:23:01
Speaker
But um like with co-op print yards, you were partnering with GSP. You mentioned doing a lot of prize support. um I've interviewed Mark Yule from Strata Strike and um Andrew Knuckles from Curl-Paw Creatives and named a few awesome Etsy shops ah that do gaming components. What drove you to do a co-op print yards? Besides, I know you said you love the aspect of creating product for people and making them happy, but um why? I got into 3D printing in 2016, and so um i'm I am a actually, my degree is in mechanical engineering. So I'm actually a mechanical engineer. i'm also a material I'm also a material scientist, and I'm a software engineer. So I have a i like i can make pretty much anything, ah hardware or software. I can do like robotics and microcontrollers, and so yeah. it just ah i just I feel like I have a rare skill set to basically make anything that I can imagine.
00:23:57
Speaker
And so when I started playing X-Wing, i know I'm not good at keeping track of things, like little details. And so I would just miss triggers. I would lose components. i would It was bad. I would routinely assign a dial to the wrong ship and then fly it off the board. And it was just such a frustrating thing of like, this game is so fun. And I'm just getting in my own way. How can I... And so I... Okay, so it wasn't my idea. It was my wife's idea, to to be honest. So I came home one night after playing X-Wing and I just complained to her like, well, I lost again because I flew off the board. because i And she just said, well, sweetheart, why don't you just design in 3D print something to color code your ships and your dials? And I was like, why don't I?
00:24:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great idea. My wife is way smarter than I am. So I was like, okay. So I, I just threw up through together something and and I brought it to the game store and everyone who saw it was like, that's pretty
Innovations and Technical Challenges
00:24:54
Speaker
cool. Could you, could you make some for me? And I was like, okay, maybe I'm onto something. And then I just kept, I just kept making stuff. And, um, I mean, yeah, I just kept making stuff and it, it just, it took off. It it sort of grew. It's. own sort of thing and just took off and, and, uh, started getting some really passionate people, you know, spreading the word. And yeah. So, um, that's kind of how quad print yards happen. Oh, very cool. Yeah. How long did you do quad print yards for? You said 2016. That would have been what? yeah Six years. I shut it down. I shut it down basically September, 2022 at Nova. And I started it. I started during the pandemic or maybe right before.
00:25:37
Speaker
So it was probably early 20, early 2021. Yeah, maybe, was it a year and a half? Yeah, maybe. think I think it was less than two years, honestly. Kind of crazy. It felt it felt like it was so much longer than that. That does. 2020, that 2021, 2022 pocket of time to feels like seven, eight years ago. Yeah, right. It definitely ate me eight years. so Yeah, no no kidding. You're not alone. That was the time for us all, ah tested us all. So with roll better specifically going back to roll better we're talking about quad print yards now back to roll better again bouncing around. What are some gratifying you know ah overall good aspects of of managing the roll better software? What are some things that aren't so great for a better tour?
00:26:24
Speaker
The worst part is probably paying the server costs. I mean, honestly, that's that's probably it. i I wish it was cheaper. it's it's not it's on a and and It's not a crazy amount of money. It's really only about $200 a month that I'm paying, um which I'm not saying that's not a lot to some people, but um in my situation that I'm in, it's it's manageable and there's not really a risk of it going up significantly. That's probably the worst part. Did you have to expand that based on the demands of player size? Because, you know, like, for example, Tabletop d would crash when there would be, you know, 200 people playing X-Wing in one event now.
00:27:00
Speaker
Nope, that doesn't happen because of the way it's architected. Nice. So matchmaking is calculated off server. So the server does not wait for a matchmaking result. So you could have a 300 player tournament and go kick off a matchmaking for a round. And the server just keeps chugging along because that calculation happens off server and ah on ah on the very on a separate serverless and implementation. That's one reason why. The other reason is because I've implemented caching. So there's it's not the most sophisticated caching implementation. If I had more money I wanted to throw at it per month, maybe like $50 to $100 more a month, I could probably get a better caching implementation. But the one I have, I think, is good enough. um So those things combined really help it. Now, if someone does, I mean, it's not like you couldn't DDoS the thing, um but
00:27:52
Speaker
it has I mean, it hasn't happened. the The server has crashed during Worlds, but the server has an automatic restart that takes less than a minute. So if it does crash and you're like, I can't see anything, just wait like two minutes, three minutes, and you'll yeah be good, you'll be good. So I think at the last Worlds event, the server crashed twice, but it instantly recovered and it wasn't. it it According to people who were at the event and the TOs who were running it, there were no issues from their perspective. Yeah, no, absolutely. i think i I think I remember in the hate in the early days, like it was just like ah the being logged out ah randomly, sometimes after five minutes, sometimes after an hour, sometimes not at all. and that's yeah I can log into my account and still be logged in. I think um that that's probably an easier fix. But I just know that if if those are the kinks that you're really ironing out, I think you're in a pretty good place overall. right like If that's like one of the major things, like who cares? I'll log in. It takes 20 seconds.
00:28:50
Speaker
There were some rough times in the early days. The logout issue was just my laziness and not implementing a proper refresh token. So basically once your token your auth token expired, you just by by logging and have fun logging in again. It also didn't check for your auth token. So it like it kind of got in a weird state where it kind of thought you were logged in, but you weren't. So like it showed you a logged in UI, but you couldn't do anything. That was interesting. but yeah it's it's i've you know there's an issue where like a list where There was issue where I did a change and like a list all of a sudden became public for like you know worlds. I think the first time around, that was pretty bad. you know Definitely those like firefighter moments are probably the worst, but those don't really happen anymore. but that's That's more of a product maturity thing than I'm doing anything.
00:29:35
Speaker
thanks um it just i just it was like It was just trying to make an MVP, minimal viable product, and caching wasn't on the list, and and and a mature authorization process wasn't on the list. But you know eventually they they came around and we got them. so But the best thing the best thing about Roll Better is just when someone comes in the Discord and says, ran a tournament, had no issues, it was amazing. Thank you so much. like that's Is there anything better there than that? I don't think so. Yeah, no. it's it's like ah is sometimes you you, you're like, oh really, that's it? Like, you you know, it's not when somebody said like, oh, like, it you know, this, this was like a, you know, a life changing moment in my life. It's like, no, things are working properly. That's what makes me happy because that's the goal, right? It's just like, I don't need, you'd you'd rather just have a hundred of those kind of very vanilla, just like things went well, no problems. But to to the average person, it might seem vanilla to you. It's like music to your ears because you're like, great. yeah That's, that's what I want to hear. That's what I'm trying to do here.
00:30:33
Speaker
Now, would you be on call, per se, with Chris Allen or anybody running these bigger events, like Worlds, right? You're probably on standby if something happens, I would assume, right? Yeah. Give me a picture of what that looks like. Yeah, if you're running a major event and you need support, then you can let me know before the event. Yeah, I definitely have worked with Chris Allen directly on Worlds both years, watching Discord. He calls me if there's a problem, yeah, yeah every everything. So yeah, I will say like, it's not like, I would say if the player count, if you're either using a new feature or the player count exceeds 200, that's when I'm probably going to get involved. Like I would, if you're over 200, I'm going to take my own initiative to reach out to you and be like, Hey,
00:31:28
Speaker
Here's my number. If something goes wrong, just call me. ah Yeah. So i yeah, I was in a way I'm always on call, right? But yeah, the number of times I've like run out of the bedroom and told my wife something's wrong with the website and like run out of the bedroom to go fix it real quick. And, you know, she's just like, okay, you know, okay. Doesn't happen so much now, though. So. Yeah, no, that's I would assume that um it seemed like I think I remember seeing Chris like maybe make a couple calls and I'm like, I'm wondering if he's calling, you know, Brian or like, you know, it's it's a real better thing, which I'm not not to suggest that there was, you know, any any sort of catastrophic issue, but just like just because, again, it technology, it happens when you have
00:32:12
Speaker
that many players and just, you know, being on call makes sense. And it's actually, I think, probably for some people really nice to hear that you're um but you're taking it to that level of seriousness, right? Like, you're not somebody who's just like, I'm in Malibu, like, good luck. you know like you're You're somebody who is reachable in instances where they should be when there's large events that are important, like Worlds, right? That's cool. Definitely not in Malibu, that's for sure. but yeah i don't know that's I feel like I cite that as like the vacation and stereotypical vacation spot. you know You're probably not spending much time with the family in Malibu.
00:32:50
Speaker
Yeah, on one hand, it it is a hobby and I'm and I'm going to have boundaries in my personal life to make sure it stays that way. But on the other hand, you know, I do stand behind the products I make. And so, um yeah, I'm happy to support, you know, large events that where you just need that extra level of of ah feeling just feeling safe that your events going to security. Yeah, yeah that that just that extra level of security to to know that you can, you know, rely on most of these platforms are community built. And so Um, don't have elaborate support structures, but just knowing that, you know, just want people to know that like, I do stand behind it and, uh, and it's, I think it's reliable and and they can depend on it. Yeah, no, absolutely. Now, um, is real better strictly always just going to be for X-wing or is there like, what is real better for terms of game support? Is it, is it, are you planning on supporting other games? What's, what's that look like? That's a big question. So yeah. So, okay. So i'll I'll give you like the, like the, where I want it, what I want to do. And I'll tell you why I'm not doing it.
00:33:49
Speaker
Okay, so what I want to do is I want to open it up so you can add any game you want to the to the website. Right? I mean 40k like literally like Catan. I don't care. I want to I mean soccer like I want to open it up so you can put anything you want on it. i I want to keep it focused on tabletop miniatures. I don't really want to get into like, I have my cornhole league and I want to use you know, roll better. So I'm sure some people listening to your podcast don't know what cornhole is, but I live in the South. So i yeah yeah yeah right I know what it is. um So that's what I want. The problem is the product at at at the cost I'm currently paying, you know, i I can't afford to let anyone come in with any gain.
00:34:33
Speaker
I just, I just, unless it's a real company that's actually generating revenue, I just can't do that. So that's part of why I can't do it. Um, that's what kind of, it's it's mostly a money thing is why I can't. So it's per would you say if you added one more game, sorry, interrupt, if you added one more game, it automatically like that as costs, like every game would add a little bit more. how would that No, it's not about, uh, the number of games. It's about the number of events happening simultaneously. Oh, I see. Okay. Imagine at Adepticon, there were five different game systems using RollBetter for major tournaments. So X-Wing, let's say X-Wing, let's say like optimistically. X-Wing, Armada, Legion, 40K, and something else, right? They're all using RollBetter for all their major tournaments at Adepticon. I could handle it, but I would have to put some extra servers in play. I would have to scale my compute in the backend to handle that.
00:35:26
Speaker
The front end would be fine, but the back end would need some help, right? So um that the cost of that would probably of an event line. I mean, I could like I could just sort of know a depth of cons coming and only scale it for that time period. And it might cost me 50 to 100 bucks just to do that. But. i don't I don't even want to do that because then I have to be aware of all the major events that are happening for all the different game systems and it's just not feasible. I want to go to a place where anyone can add a game and there's certain that means a lot that there's a there's actually a lot of implications with that statement of I want anyone to be ah able to add any game. you can You would be able to add any game, you'd be able to define metadata for the game, you'd be able to define rule sets for the game and version those rule sets and own them and make them public and share them and
00:36:15
Speaker
Yeah, like it's, it's a lot, right? Like, like, imagine you wanted to have a list validator for some custom X-wing tournament that was going to be, you know, a 25 point tournament instead of 20. And you were going to allow multifaction and like there's specific list building rules, right? If you could have a way of telling roll better what those rules were, and you had access to an entire set of up to date X-wing data about the ships and the cards and everything. then you could just make your own rule set and then rather than you having to manually check to make sure everyone's list is legal, it's just all automatically done for you.
00:36:55
Speaker
thats That's cool. Yeah, that's what I think roll better has to treat big yeah, and it sounds it just it sounds it's I mean knowing based on this conversation it sounds Possible but unlikely for very practical and logistical reasons right like it's you know it's not like you'd be like I couldn't figure that out it's really just because it's I get it. yeah there are there There are things, there are there are some very real barriers and you know in terms of being able to to get that done. I think it's it's important to give context to that. Technical complexity of building out a version control system for basically anything is a big feat for sure. Yeah. But I also want i also want to do, in like I want to provide, like I want it to be about communities. you know like my like The vision for a role better, you know I talked about vision outcomes, strategies, whatever.
00:37:46
Speaker
My vision is um healthy gaming communities through competitive play. That's the vision. And so the tournament administration part is just one part of of having a healthy competitive scene. I think there's a lot of other things that go along with that, like influencers, like yourself and in streamers like GoldSquadron, right? So I have a bunch of things rolling around in my head that would be tools for influencers to connect with role to connect their content with role better. I have a lot of ideas there. I built a little bit of it out, but I haven't quite decided what I want to do with it. So you know my brother, he's he has an MBA and he thinks a lot about companies and how to run them and stuff like that. And so some advice he gave me was,
00:38:39
Speaker
don't build something and give it to your users if you plan on heavily monetizing it in the future. And so the influencer aspect of it would be a lot of effort and I would probably plan on having influencers do some sort of like annual subscription model for it, right? And so it would it would feel bad to give that tool to users And then later on say, you can't have that anymore unless you want to pay me X dollars a year. like it just doesn't feel Even if right it's it doesn't feel good, the perception is like, ow. I don't want people to have that negative association with the product and maybe letting the cat out of the bag on this podcast is making people feel bad already. ah You can tell me as an influencer.
00:39:21
Speaker
um by You know, it's things like like I have, I have, that's like, that's an idea, but like there's way more ideas I have for things that I i think I could do, but a lot of them are sort of down the monetization lane and that gets complicated with money. As soon as you introduce money, it all gets very, very complicated. You know, so. Yeah, and it hurts accessibility, right? Because factually, the access to the platform will be greatly diminished by users who can use it, depending on what the paywall might be for certain features, right? um And we can definitely talk more about the money aspect, because I, with Patreon, and you know the logistics of printing cards and paying for ah
00:40:00
Speaker
cards to be designed by artists and which I believe in paying for artists to design cards. It's the least I can do. And we don't even get to pay that much. But it's important, you know, stuff like that money also is a really important aspect of 312 as well. And trying to balance incentivizing people like hey, if you want a little bit more, you can give a little bit and you get this in return, also making it accessible in the core structure of who we are and and our discord and all that remains open to anybody that's it There's a balance to walk there for sure. and I know people get annoyed when I stream on Twitch and they're not subscribed and they're like, I just had to watch two minutes of ads while you were talking about this thing. And it's like, i you know it's like i I feel bad because I don't want to just be like, well, just you know subscribe but because I get like $2 out of it. It's really kind of a menial amount of money.
00:40:50
Speaker
um But there're you're kind of burdened by the platform. And so I try to upload everything to YouTube, a free platform with minimal ads interrupting games as much as quickly as much as possible to try to offset those things. But you know it's difficult because you do need to be able to make some money to spend money and improve the craft. And that's a goal of yours, and it should be. It really should be a goal of yours, I understand. People should understand that for sure. Yeah, and and I don't want to scare anyone talking about money. like The core product will always be free. like You will always be able to turn run a tournament for free on Roll Better. The only time that money gets involved is, is there a feature set for maybe an influencer or someone um that
00:41:36
Speaker
would be willing to do a subscription. or ah the the The main monetization path I have right now is just is scraping a little fee off of a ticketing feature where you could you could you could include your ticketing and check-in process for your event. You just okay do it through RollBetter. I've seen a lot of game stores use like Cvent and other websites that are just eventing websites, and and and those sites are just scraping fees off the top of ticket prices. um That's essentially what I'd be doing as my first like monetization strategy. But if you wanted to monetize if you wanted to do your payment and everything outside of Roll Better, like it's free. you know So I don't want to scare anybody with monetization you sure at all. Yeah, for sure. yeah Yeah, and I don't think you would. You you know, like when I was going back to Access, you know that you know going full greed and putting a line of paywall would just make Roll Better just not a usable site anymore. you know That's obviously not what you're trying to go for.
00:42:28
Speaker
And there's no ads on roll better because I hate ads and I have no plans on ever implementing ads Yeah, good Bravo little golf clap on that one. It's it's nice to hear i competition wise Long shanks comes to mind is like it top in terms of when I think of my x-wing brain it's like long shanks people to use long shanks sometimes I've tried to use it I I couldn't, I just, I couldn't stand it for a few reasons. um I don't want this to be a barrage against Longshanks specifically, but we can talk about, let's talk about the competition that you you see and that you deal with and the things that kind of keep you concerned or on edge or, or just aware of your surroundings. Yeah. I think, I think Longshanks, I mean, you're not going to hear me really bash, um, Longshanks, uh, you know, the guy who works on that or the team like they're providing Chicago.
00:43:22
Speaker
Oh, yeah, you know. Yeah. Oh, no, no, it's just it's just when I paid for the little subscription fee, it said like Windy City. I can't remember exactly the name, but it's like Windy City Labs. I think it's like, I think I still pay for logshakes.
Competition and Unique Features of Roll Better
00:43:34
Speaker
Yeah, I, I don't have anything. I mean, I think the UI could be better, but like I'm, uh, have you seen roll better? It's not like. The homepage is terrible. I mean, the homepage for roll better keeps me up at night. Sometimes it's so bad, but I don't really have much. I don't have much room to talk about good or bad design. I know people have struggled with using long shanks UI. I don't know if that's technical debt or intentional or or what.
00:44:00
Speaker
Um, but no, like long shanks is a, is a critical tool for so many games and, and they're providing that free. And so, um, anyone who's doing that for a gaming community is a, is a pretty awesome person in my mind. Um, and so i'm yeah I think I had to pay for ah to run my event, but it was, it was like five bucks. It was really, I was like, I'll happily donate or pay for that. yeah Maybe, maybe I'm not aware of the monetization, um, over at long shanks. I honestly don't pay much attention to, uh, what a competitor got. I think in the world of product design, it's very it's very easy for people to get distracted by their competitors, and I don't i basically spend very little time looking at competitors. I know who they are, and i know and I keep up to date with some of the news and stuff, but like you're not going to find me like stalking their discords or anything.
00:44:46
Speaker
um yeah i i
00:44:53
Speaker
um theres There are a lot of things that Longshanks does that I can't do. right Team tournaments, for example. I have it on my to-do list. i I did a spike, which in software terms is like I did a little like exploratory coding to figure out what that would look like for a role better. It is possible. I have a lot of good ideas, I think, for it. It'll come eventual it will it will it'll come eventually. it's on It's on the list. But Longshanks has team tournaments, right? And so I think that's great. like there's there's just There are things that Longshanks does that Roll Better doesn't do. And I think that's that's an important that's an important a competitor to have. when you I think the best the best products come from a free market. That's what I think. And so if if someone comes along one day and they build a better product than me and no one uses Roll Better anymore, then I will applaud them and I will you know throw in the towel and say, congratulations, you did it.
00:45:44
Speaker
um Because at the end of the day, the X-Wing community has a better tool. And that's what every gaming community deserves. So that's that's kind of my position on competition. um What I think was interesting was the competition that sprung up after the the the the shutdown of TTO. ttt table to Three Ts? t t yeah Tabletop, I think it was T-T-T. Yeah, I think I just, tabletop T-O. I think I used to just call T-T-O. I think is what the the short form was, even though technically I think it's supposed to be three, but it was always two. T-T-O. Yeah, so there was a group from, the I think the the group from Legion created Game Uplink. Don't know if you're familiar familiar with Game Uplink, but that was a tool created by, I think, the fifth trooper over, they do like a podcast and some stuff and they,
00:46:32
Speaker
I don't know what the affiliation is, I don't want to speak out of turn, but I know they created something for Legion. That product has been discontinued and they've moved all of their stuff to Longshanks, that happened recently. And i i'm in a I'm in a Discord channel with a bunch of Legion TOs on a popular Legion Discord, and the Longshanks guy is in there, and I think some of the game uplink people are in there. as well, and so it's been really interesting following the conversations there. They're constantly asking the Longshanks guy, like, can you add this to Longshanks? Can you add this? Can you add this? And he's always like responding, like, yeah, I can do that. And and i mean the support that Longshanks gives and the responsiveness is phenomenal. I witnessed it firsthand. um On the Armada side, there was a website that sprung up called T4.tools. T4, meaning like we're basically the successor to tabletop.to.
00:47:27
Speaker
i who What to say about T4? It was interesting watching that product get built. um I will say the Armada community is an interesting bunch of bunch of folks because I went to tell them about RollBetter because I was like, hey, I support Armada. And they were like, go away, we have T4.tools. I mean, there were some pretty mean responses. ah to be talking about roll better and I went and did a little I mean I did a comparison and it came out that like basically roll better was better than t4 dot tools and in many many many ways and I Don't i would say I don't have very sophisticated list support for Armada, but I am working on that
00:48:14
Speaker
Oh, by the way, just in case anyone plays Legion, I just released a new icon set for Legion on Roll Better, and even if you're not going to use it, you should definitely go check it out. I worked with a professional designer to come up with the icons and everything, so like it please go check it out. um But Armada, yeah. people So just to interject right now, just because I asked the you the question about what games are support. So it's X-Wing, Legion, Armada are the three that are you can do. basically Basically all Star Wars tabletop miniature games I will support. And then if there are special requests from the community, like ah Nickel City X-Wing, Greg asked me to support Aerodome. That was called Aerodome. Yeah. Yeah, Aerodome.
00:48:57
Speaker
Yeah, Ephirian games or something like that. Yeah, so like I added that, right? And so he had, he had some requests for that. And so i'll I'll gladly support, you know, my main issue is when I add a game is my thinking is, is how much support is this game going to take? That's the thinking. Um, not really turn, I don't think tournament counts going to get out of hand anytime soon, but just how much support do I need to provide? And so, um, if it's like a really complicated game, like I'm not going to add Warhammer. Okay. It's not happening. But a little game like Aerodome, ah not to i'm notz so wasn't a'm not I'm not throwing shade at Aerodome, calling it a little game, maybe it's a big game, I don't know. But you know I'm glad we support a simple game that's sort of adjacent to the Star Wars tabletop community. But yeah, but yeah back to the T4.Tools thing, i i saw I was in their Discord and I saw a lot of people complaining about a lot of things, and every time I saw a complaint, I was like, well, for all better does that already, like why not? yeah and so
00:49:51
Speaker
I poked around, I poked around maybe too much and asked some people, Hey, you want, you know, want to use this? And basically they, all they told me was, we just don't know you. You're not from the Armada community. So we don't trust you. And we're not going to use your product. And I was like, okay. Okay. I mean, if you want to be loyal to your, your, your people, yeah that's that's fine with me. That's fine with me. I i get it. Like getting to know you. It's like, you can get to know somebody and decide it's a very, a very black and white way to look at that for sure. yeah I think like one of the things that Rollbetter does very well is matchmaking. So the matchmaking code is like 4,000 lines of code. And it is very sophisticated. It it will give you, okay and i and i and I have no problem saying this, it will give you perfect matchmaking. like It will give you the minimal amount of rematch as possible. like I had someone come in and say, hey, your matchmaker gave me the wrong pairings. They gave it gave me a rematch.
00:50:47
Speaker
And I actually drew out on a graph like, here's your players. Here's how many Swiss rounds you've done. It's too many for the number of players you have. It is mathematically impossible to pair these players without a rematch. And I and i explained, I showed him the graph and he was like, Oh, you're right. And, and, and it was just like, when he initially told me, I was like, Oh no, how, like I worked so hard on it. I, I thought of all the edge cases, how, what could be going wrong? And, and I did a deep dive onto what he was saying. And I was like, Oh no, the algorithm actually is correct. So like, if you want, I don't know what matchmaking looks on other platforms at this point, but if you want perfect, I mean, perfect matchmaking roll better has perfect Swiss matchmaking. So, and, and it has perfect, um, it has perfect, uh, around Robin.
00:51:34
Speaker
Matchmaking to like if you come in and add people like later on in the round robin like it will continue to like avoid Rematches and impair as best as possible. That's cool That's really neat four thousand lines of code my gosh. I didn't write all of them um it's a it's a very it's a very sophisticated graph traversal algorithm and I I saw how other people had implemented their Swiss matchmaking and so many complaints about rematches things like that and I was like What if I could solve this problem? So I mean, um it is essentially a PhD level computer science problem. I don't think people realize that. It is it is like graduate level computer science, like graph theory is is the actual solution to Swiss matchmaking. And we're all better has it implemented perfectly. So there you go.
00:52:21
Speaker
Yeah, that's a I don't even think about that when yeah I generate you know create next round and you know the match the matches are set up. About any of that, I just am like, yep, you know tech doing its thing. you know i'm not a big I'm not the most techy guy more on the video side in terms of tech at at best, really. But it's really fascinating to learn about how dense and how sophisticated it needs to be for there to be an actually adequate Um, system of pairings and matchmaking because it's so crucial. Like, I mean, X-wing is a game X-wing specifically. And this example is a game of so many variables that determine if you are more likely to win or, or at least have a little bit more, um, more of odds in your favor. Right. And pairings dictate that in a lot of will dictate that, um, who you play. And it's important to to get that right.
00:53:17
Speaker
for sure. Now it sounds like this is, you know, at times could be, it can be a lot of work. So it segway into my next question for you. Brian is, why are you doing this all on your own? Is it an ego thing? Is it a, I just, this is my thing. Is it, you know, reasonably so I'd only want to pay somebody and I can't afford to pay somebody kind of thing. Like what would it be? Yeah, I just, I will say thank you to all the people who reached out and have offered to help because when I originally started, I had people offering to help. And from the beginning, my vision for Roll Better was that I wanted to turn it into a company. And you know someone gave me some advice. If you're going to start a company, don't choose a co-founder who has the same skill set as you.
00:53:58
Speaker
And that's one of the reasons I don't have a co-founder. I guess I'd be open to one, especially if they'd be willing to finance it so I could quit my job and do it full time. But um yeah, i just I'm building it alone because I think that there's the there's the ownership aspect, there's the you know um there's the product direction and and like the vision and the strategy part of it that im that I do. so I don't feel like there's a gap in my skills. The only gap in my skill set right now that I think Roll Better would tremendously benefit from is a designer. But at this stage, that's really something I'm gonna contract out and like pay someone to do if i if I desperately need it. It's not something that I'm gonna take on like a co-founder, invite someone in to to do that full time. if if you know when i become would If it becomes a company on its own one day, then I'll definitely
00:54:52
Speaker
have someone come in and kind of lead design because I think design is very important and I'm not very good at it. Can I ask you a dumb question I should ask you like forever ago? Why did you call it roll better? Is it just because of the meme? Like, you just roll better? Like, I mean, it's kind of a meme. Like the name is great. It's like, why did I not ask that earlier? I don't know what's wrong with me. So I came up with a bunch of names and it came down to domain availability. because there were some names that I came up with and the domains were like $10,000 and I was like, not naming it that. um So i was I was thinking of some like tongue-in-cheek things to give you an idea of how bad of an X-wing player I am. After every match I play on Tabletop Simulator, I always check my dice score. So that's how bad of an X-wing player I am. And so like I always tell myself, like
00:55:47
Speaker
If I had just rolled better, I would have beat that guy, which is probably never true, right? But I came up with a list and I threw it out there on the Discord and said, what do you guys think? And there was a lot of positive responses to roll better, just for like how cheeky it was. And yeah so yeah, I checked the GG domain and it was it was available for, you know, 10 bucks or something like that. And that was I said, all right, good deal. somebody Some of the other names were Tabletop Stadium was one of the, was in the running. I thought Tabletop Stadium was ah was a decent one. Yeah, there a couple other ones that were dice related. I i and i intentionally didn't make it X-Wing specific.
00:56:30
Speaker
um b or or like T4.tools. i was I was definitely not trying to claim to be a successor to to TTTO, whatever whatever it's called. yeah But yeah, the the name, I love the name, I love the logo, the simplicity of the the the eight-sided die logo. I think it rolls off the tongue. I think it's i think it's i like an inside joke for the for the tabletop gaming community. I think it's an inside joke and I think that aspect of it, ah that playfulness is is something that, It's sort of encapsulated. As a brand, I think i think it has the potential to have a very you know ah pretty strong and memorable brand. so Yeah, and you have a little hello there at the bottom of the smiley face, just to kind of yeah a little wink to the fondness.
00:57:13
Speaker
my footer My footer sucks, too. my There are so many problems. There are so many things I look at. I wasn't trying to call you out, but if you consider yourself called out, I guess. When you make something, you only see the flaws. You know what I mean? And so I just can't help but see the but flaws everywhere. Yeah. um One of my questions that I had added um was, ah is it remind me, are we still consider, are you considering role better to be in an alpha stage or because it's been in a specific stage, alpha or beta? you Correct me, because they're very different. I know the the the meanings of both of those. um When will it it kind of evolve into not being that at all? um Why is it? that' all in mean that way Development stages are made up and the names don't matter. I'll just put it that way.
00:57:57
Speaker
I call it open alpha. It's probably more of an of a closed beta based on my definition of closed. So it's not closed to users. It's closed to more game systems, right? So it's probably in a closed beta right now is probably the more appropriate term. But I'm going by the roadmap I've set out and the features I want to have. I will consider it out of beta when there's a stable monetization um system in place, right? So when I have event ticketing will be the first step there. When event ticketing exists, I will consider, and it's stable, I will consider it to be out of beta. And hopefully that the homepage won't look atrocious at that point. So.
00:58:38
Speaker
You're doing a good job of segwaying to these topics, man. This is really impressive. So Bravo, because the next pick play question, right? Yeah. Well, you know it well flex, just going to flex it. But I'm not even trying. Money is is ah is a factor. ah And I think most people in the community and other gaming communities are are well aware of that. You have been offered. um donations or people have asked how they can financially support your efforts. ah My understanding is you don't accept donations. and I'm going to ask you why. um And then in terms of you had mentioned event ticketing and stuff, are there other paths to moization monetization that you have explored in the future? Yeah, ah I don't accept donations because I don't
00:59:22
Speaker
i just i don't One, I don't need them, which is a great place to be in. The other reason is just because I don't want i don't want people to give me money for what I'm doing when my long-term plan is to profit from it. It just doesn't feel right to me. I don't think it's unethical. It just doesn't feel right. If I planned on this being a community tool that was going to be free forever and I had no plans on monetizing it, I would be accepting donations. But because I have that long to me, this is I just treat it like a startup, you know, no one asks for a donation when they have a startup company, right? They ask you to use the product. And so that to me, the best thing you can do for roll better to to support the product is to just use it. And then one day when a monetization path comes out, if you find it valuable and useful,
01:00:08
Speaker
then use it. right To me, the the the use of the product is the best way to communicate to me that it's valuable to you. And if that means giving me money one day for the product, then give me money one day for the product. but I don't feel comfortable asking for it. or or Sure. donating Now, this might be an unfair question. like If you weren't in the fortunate position to just not have to worry about money, like let's just say you're average when it comes to just like expenses and stuff, like the average person. Would that change the way you think about being able to accept donations considering your track might still be to to monetize or is you know or is that just a part of the the puzzle?
01:00:47
Speaker
I haven't really even thought about that, to be honest. I'm fortunate enough to to be in a career that pays very well, and i'm I'm very grateful for that. I don't take it for granted. My company also has a policy that they'll never lay anybody off, ever. So my job is not, ah I'm not at risk of losing my job. i you know even That's good. Even if there's a ah bad recession in the economy tanks, like they'll never fire me or lay me off. And so that stability also sort of guarantees Roll Better's financial stability. And so I don't even really think about it. Sure. Yeah. It's probably kind of a ah question that I didn't even need to ask. But I just i just do what think about that. Because it you know if i if I was better off, I definitely would look at
01:01:29
Speaker
Things differently and how I try to incentivize people to join patreon or you know subscribe to twitch or whatever What probably just wouldn't care as much. It's not that I care deeply about it now because it is what it is It's not that important. This isn't a job for me. It's just I enjoy I mean, but it's a fight, you know, I can entertain the question I I think I probably just wouldn't make it if I couldn't afford it um I mean, I mean I I used to be very poor I used to have like no money um I used to like Yeah, there was one point in my life where I had $200 in my bank account in a car and that was it. So I know what it's like to not have means. I don't want to sound insensitive or boisterous when I say I have a stable career and am able to afford it. But yeah, I think if I did, I wasn't. But that also can be true. I mean, yeah, not for sure. I respect that.
01:02:15
Speaker
Yeah, if I didn't have the means to support it, I i don't think I would accept donations. I probably just... probably Yeah, and I guess it's less about the means as much as... like or like Not saying you couldn't afford it, but it's just it was just more of a factor. Like, oh, like these server costs are like, oh, like you know I just can't go... i just i Most people would just worry about it a little bit more if it moved the needle more, I guess. But not not a really important thing to dive into. I just was curious. you know it's just I think it's more of just like ah kind of a lifestyle um question.
01:02:46
Speaker
right um And I think it's great that you are in that position. You've worked hard, and you have a family, and you need to do a You don't need me to give you a pat on the back for living ah a life with a stable job. But it's good. It's important. and And I think that's actually a great aspect of roll better for people is that it's secure because you're secure. Those things matter to people. They don't think about it, but it matters. There's actually one way to support me financially. ive I uploaded, so the quad print yards thing shut down and I immediately got asked by a bunch of people, how can I get access to the model so I can print it myself? And so I'm actually releasing more, I'm on printables dot.com, I have a store there, and I'm gonna be releasing more 3D models. I released the first one, which was my dial covers I was really well known for.
01:03:33
Speaker
ah The like the the the fancy ones that like had the target locks that slid in and out of the dial cover So I don't i don't even know if you know what I'm talking about, but I uploaded 3d models there I post about on reddit I needed five people to buy that before the website would let me upload more models to sell and so I've hit five and so I'm gonna upload more Model three more 3d models from quad print yards, and those will be for sale and so if you want to support me Yeah, we'll link that in our description you can buy from my my printable store. Now, you're only buying a 3D model. You're not buying but the actual printed stuff. So if you have a 3D printer and you want to print it yourself, it's going to be there. Keep that in mind, folks. It's just a model, 3D model, not a physical model. Yeah, a lot of 3D printers would but but would love to to do that, to hear that. um I'll definitely link that in our description so people can check that out. I think that's really cool that you're doing that. Thank you. um
01:04:23
Speaker
Yeah, of course. Well, the last question I have for the conversation, and I think this has been a really cool, interesting, fascinating conversation, even if you thought maybe it might not be as so, it has been, um Brian. So it's been great. um What is something that you wish people knew about what you do, whether it be with, you know, we're all better now or co-op print yards or or, you know, even beyond that? There are some hidden features in Roll Better that are extremely sophisticated um and really helpful. And I don't think most people... I can see who uses what features in the in the product. I don't think most people know about them, like the Discord integration. So you can have Discord messages sent to a Discord channel via a webhook.
01:05:10
Speaker
through role better like Enroll Better, every time someone submits results, registers for your event, you can choose to have like a channel that's specific for like your judges and your admins, and only they can see certain events that happen. You can have another one that's player-facing, and it and like it sends like formatted Discord messages, like pretty formatted Discord messages with links and stuff. at like you know yeah There's a little bit of setup in the Discord tab, but like that's one feature I think is really awesome, I think is an underutilized. The other one is the table feature. So um if you go to the the, gosh, what's it called? I don't even know what it's called anymore. It's like the last tab. ah Movement, movement, I think is what it's called in the admin panel, if you're a TO.
01:05:54
Speaker
um you can actually control how players are moved around at tables during your event. So you can declare which table numbers are for players that can't move around a lot, whether that's because they have some physical impairment, because it's ah a kid and they need to have their parent keep an eye on them. For whatever reason, right you can assign a table to be for players who don't eat who can't move around a lot. And the algorithm, when it assigns table numbers, will take that into account and place those players only at those tables. So they have to they don't have to move around as much.
01:06:32
Speaker
um the the So what's what's really cool from a technical standpoint is the algorithm, the very sophisticated Swiss matchmaking algorithm that solves that problem for map Swiss matchmaking is the exact same algorithm that solves the table assignment problem. Amazing enough, which i when I found that out was really cool. But the the the the movement thing doesn't just minimize movement for players who are who require assistance. It also can help you avoid people playing at the same table multiple times. So if you're playing Legion and the terrain on the table is not going to move and matters and you don't want to give someone advantage by having them stay there,
01:07:10
Speaker
you can have them avoid playing at the same table twice for the whole event. And those like, there's there's a few I'm not gonna go super deep. There's a few more other options there about how you can control player movement. That's cool. But I love that. Like again, it's a it's like a graduate level computer science problem to solve that. And it's so sophisticated. And I and i don't I don't think many people know it even exists. But you know, it's it's just stuff like that. Like I've, I've put a lot of um Not just like a lot of passion and like, and hard and stuff into the product. But like, it's, it's those little things that like, you don't even realize how technically complex it is to make something like that. But the problems that it solves are, you know, I think pretty useful. But yeah, those, when I think about the things that people don't know about roll better that I wish they did, it's things like the matchmaking is perfect. It's like the best you can get.
01:08:04
Speaker
you know the ui The UI might be ugly, but man, like there are some there was some serious technical sophistication behind the scenes going on. so Yeah, i mean I'd rather have a more simplistic UI that that really excels at the things that needs to excel at, personally. So you know I don't think that's something that, you know I know that we're all aware. like You look at roll better, and it's like, oh, this isn't the Sistine Chapel, but it it doesn't need to be. And I think it would be cool. but How crazy would it be if you got to that point, and then you mentioned ah working with a graphic designer potentially in the future. and so But you got you got to make sure that the core features work at the strongest possible level. And you've done a great job with that. So I'm going to cut you a lot of slack with the... Go check out those Legion icons. They're they're yeah they're really cool. And if you have if you if anyone's here is Legion, if anyone listening it plays Legion and and you go and you check it out, I would love to know what your feedback is on the icons because it's sort of my first stab at
01:08:57
Speaker
going off into like my own icon territory. um There was ah some drama recently because someone posted a link to Roll Better in the AMG discord and the mods there deleted the link and they said that they said you can't post Roll Better links here you can only post Longshank's links and a bunch of people were like contacting me on discord like hey did you see this like do you see this whatever and everyone and so people there were some people who got a little pushy and were like asking amg mods and stuff like well why can't we and blah blah and so they eventually were like well because real better uses the x-wing icons
01:09:32
Speaker
And then people are like, Long Shanks also uses the X-Wing icons. And so the whole icon thing is such an interesting thing. But i i you'll probably, at one point, at some someday you'll probably see me come out with a custom icon set for X-Wing. Not because I want to, I think the icons that exist now are sufficient. But just because I don't want to get sued. Yeah, I hear you. So cool. um I'm going to run the outro here, but if there's anything else you wanted to sneak in, I'll definitely throw it over to you to shout out anyone, but that I'd ask. No, I'm probably too brain dead to shout out anything, but I guess shout out to my wife for letting me do all this, this you know, shout out.
Acknowledgments and Closing Remarks
01:10:11
Speaker
Anyone who plays X-Wing and is married, like shout out to all of our spouses that let us play these nerdy do these nerdy things. you know But other than that, Naaman, thanks for having me on. It's been good. It's been good to talk about. it I love love talking about, I'm sure you understand, like when you're a creator, talking about your baby, you never shut up about it. So thanks for giving me the opportunity to come yeah just laugh about something I'm really passionate about. Absolutely. I think it's is ah overdue and I'm super happy to be the one to to have you because it's been a really enlightening conversation. Appreciate it, Brian. And on that note, thank you to Brian for joining us and for being a crucial part of supporting the X-Wing community and tournament organizing at large.
01:10:51
Speaker
ah This episode is brought to you by Strata Strike. You can go to their Etsy page and buy so many different things, including gaming components for X-Wing and a bunch of other games. ah They have incredible wood carved templates and template trays as well. i would I would say it's brought to you by Kuat Print Yards, but, you know, Brian, I'm sorry. not not not I guess we can't do it this time. ah Use discount code 312Squadrons, 312 capital S, all lowercase, Q-U-A-D-R-O-N for 15% off. your entire purchase. This is qualifies for the entire store, not just Xwing product. In addition, follow us on Twitch to catch us live. You can catch edited content on YouTube, like us on Facebook for updates, and you can jump into the conversation in Discord if you want to talk our points or anything else, Team League, etc. ah You can also see x Xwing Alliance updates there as well. And lastly, thank you to our patrons for making this possible. You guys are all the best and our biggest supporters. We love you very much.
01:11:43
Speaker
My name is Nick Sperry. I'm going to throw it over to you, Brian. I'm Brian Yambril. And thank you for listening.