I want to run a newer game in foundry v10 while keeping my other, longer running, game in v9. I might upgrade to v10 in the future for the longer running game but worried of breaking a lot of functionality for it all (which could be a help topic for another time) with all the modules. While not so fussed in my newer game.
I saw this being discussed a couple of years ago here:
I’m just wondering is this possible at all to do? Switching between the two versions or having a separate game file for it all.
Heya
It’s possible, but you’ll need to pay careful attention to your installed packages (modules/systems) when you switch between your different games.
Your two games, one on v9 and one on v10, will be separate worlds so they won’t touch each other and you can have both at different Foundry versions. But the packages need to change every time you switch between them.
If there is no overlap between the packages you use between the two worlds, then you can simply switch the Foundry server version and Stop and Start your server when you want to switch between games.
If there is overlap, eg. if they both use the dnd5e system, you’ll want to follow these steps every time you switch between Foundry versions.
Are there any plans to be able to handle different module sets via the Game Manager at some point (This is the main reason why I switched from The Forge to my own server: So that I always have matching modules on different Foundry instances/licenses with different versions.
To do this, however, there would have to be a way for the modules to be attached to the versions of the instances/licenses (the same module set as long as several instances use the same Foundry version) without having to reassemble the modules each time when switching.
Hey there @simerion
Unfortunately, to my knowledge, there are no immediate plans to implement multiple module profiles in this way. There is a single instance of user data for the Forge account. Supporting multiple module profiles would require a level of abstraction, essentially meaning that multiple instances of user data would need to exist within the same account.
It is technically possible to do, but brings its own challenges in terms of infrastructure and UI
For me, the lack of this feature is unfortunately the KO criterion for The Forge, although I always check to see if anything changes.
Unfortunately, there are systems that never or only very late receive updates to new major versions, while for others an update makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately, it is only too clear to me (I have been working in software development myself for over 20 years) that this is associated with effort.
Just to mention, if you’re dealing with specific older systems that no longer receive updates, it’s very possible to install those modules and lock them, then set the Game Manager specific Foundry version override to the older Foundry version required by those systems.
In that sense, it is possible to support different Foundry versions and different packages per world.
This does become an issue requiring some manual steps when there is significant overlap between the modules you require for different worlds, since there can only ever be one version of a module installed at a given time. Unfortunately, this is an issue that is present in most self-hosted environments and with other hosting partners as well, unless there is a different storage environment/user data per hosted instance, as is the case when hosting on unique Oracle/Amazon instances per Foundry instance, or if you’ve set up different user data paths per Foundry version on your local machine
“Unfortunately, this is an issue that is present in most self-hosted environments and with other hosting partners as well, unless there is a different storage environment/user data per hosted instance,…”
I have more than one Foundry key, and each is a separate installation on the same virtual server (just each under its own subdomain).
In my opinion, an implementation with multiple versions should be “relatively” (although development effort, but in my opinion still somewhere manageable, since it should be possible with a few directory paths and symbolic links) easily possible if you give each version its own data directory (but not one per license, but per main version of Foundry used - which should usually be fewer).
For assets etc. that should actually be version-neutral, you could then set a symbolic link to the same directory in each of these data directories.
I am aware that this feature request is certainly not relevant for the majority, I do not think that the number of users with several Foundry versions is too high. However, if it were to be implemented at some point, the probability that I would switch back to The Forge would be quite high (unless I use the server for other things at the time that I have to administer it “anyway”).
This thread is a bit old. Does the information still hold true with the new versions? I have 1 game system that just isn’t getting updated yet, and it is holding me up from entirely updating to v12 of foundry altogether. This process sounds like a bit of a pain, but it might be worth it to have the most recent versions of everything else.
