Beneos Streaming is coming

This applies only to Foundry VTT users.

Right now for VTT users every Beneos map lives on a hard drive. You download it, you store it, and if you host online you upload all of it again, which will use up your storage quota. That works, but it puts a ceiling on everything: your disk space, your hosting plan, your upload speed, and your players' patience. Beneos Streaming removes that ceiling.

How it works

Nearly half of our Foundry VTT (Tier 2) patrons don't host the game locally but use a hosting service instead. And the most common feedback is about service limits. File size limits make many 4K maps impossible. Storage limits restrict the number of maps that can be installed at the same time. You always have to make compromises. Instead of downloading a whole release before you can use it, a map is delivered the moment you open it, from a global network with servers close to every player at your table. Like pressing play instead of waiting for a download. The map appears, it runs, and nothing sits on your drive waiting to be used.

A typical 4K release drops from about 670 MB to about 35 MB (- 95%). That is roughly twenty times smaller. One example: Orc Fortress goes from 682 MB down to 15 MB. And all players download the game via Cloudflare, not from your local server! At no additional cost.

What you get

Tiny VTT worlds. A campaign that weighed many gigabytes shrinks to a fraction. If you pay for a hosting service, this is the big one: no storage limit, no traffic bill, no deciding which maps you can afford to keep installed. No more uploading. Self hosting means waiting for your own upload. Streaming skips it. Players pull the map from the network, not from your home connection or server. Fast for everyone, everywhere. A player in Sydney and a player in Berlin each get the map from a server near them. Far less "still loading on my side" at the start of a scene.

All-Inclusive, No Additional Costs

Beneos covers all traffic and infrastructure costs. Everything you bought stays yours, and downloading stays exactly as it is today. Streaming is a new way to use your content for VTTs. Beneos Shop costumers or active patrons have unrestricted access, no limits or throttling. Of course, the Tableplay ZIP files can still be downloaded as well. And all releases will continue to be available as still images for free download by everyone on our website.

Playing without internet

Basement, cabin, no signal? Before the session you mark the maps you want and they are stored on your machine. Around thirty battlemaps can be kept offline at once, far more than one session needs. Pull the plug and everything you marked still plays. But if you often play without an internet connection, you'll soon get something even better

Beneos Streaming enables Roll20 and other VTTs

Because content is streamed instead of uploaded, we can bring Beneos maps to other browser based virtual tabletops. A Roll20 integration is in the works, and it does not touch your Roll20 storage quota at all. The same goes for Owlbear Rodeo and AboveVTT. We'll share more when we have more to show.

Comparison: Same release, same computer, same world.

When

We are targeting release before the end of this year, as long as testing keeps going as well as it has so far. This is the biggest technical step Beneos has ever taken, and it puts years of work in your hands instantly, anywhere, on more tables than before.

Upcoming Free In Person App: Beneos Game Master Screen

Those who don't play online and (like me) prefer to play locally, we'll soon be releasing a new app (for free) called “Beneos Game Master Screen,” since Foundry VTT has a lot of drawbacks when used at the gaming table. I (Ben) fully understand the need for local tableplay, since I’ve been using workarounds for years to play my own content on the table with the TV as best I can. That’s why I’ve been developing this app for some time now, and it will soon enter beta.

• Uncompromising focus on performance and speed

• Quality-of-life features for the table

• Specifically optimized for Beneo’s content

• Multi-monitor capability: Native support for Battlemap and Scenery TVs

• Handouts and scenery presentations

• Superior grid setup

• Supports massive world structures thanks to a map-node system

• Much more (more on that later, this post is primarily about the streaming solution)