Token Thursday #1 - Big news, big thanks, bug hunts, new functions and weekly updates! (Patreon)

Yeah, it's not exactly Thursday. But it will be soon! 

1. WEEKLY NEWS!

Those of you also subscribed to Beneos Battlemaps know our weekly Wednesday Ben's Day blog, where we showcase our latest news, updates, features, improvements or polls.  This post marks the inaugural equivalent here on Beneos Tokens - Token Thursday! There is a LOT of new stuff coming to Beneos Tokens and we want you to be up to date and as hyped as we are. So, let's get into it!

So edgy, but so awesome!

2. THE BIG HUNT CONTINUES (+ a BIG Thank You!)

As you have probably noticed, Foundry v9 really screwed with us. Three glaring Foundry core bugs put a damper on the whole Beneos Tokens experience and there is nothing we can do about it (except for annoying the developers with our lamentations and update requests and believe me when I say we are constantly doing just that):
1. Animations randomly skipping and canceling - that one's fixed by now!
2. A giant first frame popping when loading an animation - also finally fixed!
3. Instead of running as intended, the animation starts at a random point, loops and just freezes and stops during the animation. This one is still haunting us and it sucks.

But the good news are that all except the last one are fixed by now and the Foundry developers are aware of the bug - it's only a question of time until this, too, gets resolved.

Thank you so so so much for continuously supporting us despite those hickups, allowing us to continues releasing our tokens! Thank you, thank you, thank you! Your feedback is much appreciated and continues to fuel our need to populate the world with our monsters!

Let's get a bit of the technical and  administrative stuff out of the way!

3. NEW TIER 2 CHANGES AND FUNCTIONS!

Huge changes are coming to the Beneos Tokens module and it's going a major quality of life improvement. Mirroring Beneos Battlemaps, we are separating the assets (aka the Tokens folder within the module) and  the module itself. This enables you to comfortably update the module via the Foundry module browser. The default location for ''beneos_tokens_assets'' is the Foundry/data folder, but you can choose an alternative folder via the module settings. 

Now for the flashy part: Let's take a look at the new functions of the Beneos Tokens 1.0 Beta!

Custom Animations and Individual Settings!
First off, we revised major parts of the module code, increasing general performance and effectiveness. So that's nice! There also are Custom Idle Animations. With the click of a button you will be able to set a different default idle animation for each token - be it the round face icon, the idle isometric animation or any of the top down animations, like the talking animation for the commoner. We will start releasing each token with different idle animations, so using this feature you can bring your scenery to life with each individual token of the same type doing different stuff, increasing the immersion and realism of the setting. 

Speaking of settings: Individual Settings are a thing now. Each token will have their own individual settings, no longer are settings applied globally to all tokens. This has several upsides, one of which being enabling you to refresh the Beneos Token Compendium to only show those tokens you've actually installed. This, in turn, enables us to release even more Tokens as packs, without cluttering our weekly patreon slots with too many similar releases. We have started devising and creating content packs like a Goblin Tribe or City Guards with a greater number of individual tokens sharing a common theme. Due to the individual settings you will only see the tokens you actually want to use and have installed and not a dozen or so tokens that you do not want or have or need.

Long Story short: There will be even more content, grouped together in themed packs as separate releases to infuse your marauding orcs, skeleton army or hoplite phalanx with numbers!

4. FEATURES OF THE FUTURE!

As with Battlemaps, we are constantly working on improving and enhancing the Beneos Tokens experience. There is a long list of ideas being tossed around and workend upon and we will use our Token Thursday to share them with you and gather feedback! Our next step is the accessiblity of and ''searchability'' of our creatures. There is an ever-growing list of partially 'meaningless' names of creatures (what even is a Cipactli?!) and we want to simplify navigating your swelling ranks of minions. We are going to implement a search function (either as its own website or as an extension to the module) filtered by attributes such as, for example,  Creature Type, Challenge Rating, Environment or Combat Roles (you'll hear more about that in the future) to support you in creating challenging and fitting encounters for your players. As there will be hundred of different creatures released over time, we better start now getting this sorted out! 

This guy for example. 

There is so much more we could or want to talk about, but there are more Token Thursdays coming in the future - most of them even on actual Thursdays!

Thank you again for supporting us and see you ''next'' Thursday!

If you want to get in touch with us directly, experience issues with Beneos Tokens or Beneos Battlemaps or want to hang out and share stories with fellow hobby enthusiasts, feel free to head over to our Discord server! There you'll find an in depth installation guide and a dedicated support team, both ensuring that you'll get our content up and running! We love to hear you feedback, either on Discord or here in the comments!