4e Fan Creations and House RulesWorking on variant powers? Statting up a PC race or your version of a monster? Creating or converting an adventure? Put it here!
Well, this is some screenshots of the software our group has been running in for the last 6 months. If it written in Java 1.6 (revision 12 or later) and runs atop a Postgres DB (all freeware).
* Map authoring via tileset composition (Basically, any tiles you can get represented as an image file can be imported and used in a map)
** Maps can also have notes built into them (i.e. add text to the map) which can then be displayed via moueovers
** Maps have visibility control, allowing the GM control over what the players can see
* Fully internet compliant. We have tested connection between different cities (we had a person playing in Sydey with video conferencing and software running)
** Comes with chat window with built in dice roller
* Combat handling in authored maps including
** Intiative tracking
** Used power tracking (including auto support for recharge powers)
** HP and temp HP via slider bars. REALLY easy to use...no more trouble keeping track of temp hp
** Temporary effect tracking
** To Hit Calculator!!! <<<< (Yes, it does all of the number tracking for you. Even Temporary effects)
** Movement planner
* (In alpha development) Skill Challenge support
* In Planning : Campaign designer
Most of all : After 6 months of play, I have not used a single sheet of paper. It tracks everything I need it to.
Its not quite ready for release (still a bit buggy, but hey, we are successfully using it every week) and I am still negotiating some website space I can use, but hopefully will have ready within the next month or two. (hopefully)
Hadnt looked at Derby. Sticking with what I know I guess. Postgress is pretty low signature (though I dont know how it compares to Derby). I imagine any freeware database will work, except that I do utilize the postgress id sequence allocator, but even then adaption based on platform will be a one-function re-write (perhaps a little extra around the connection handler and use of differing drivers...nothing too hectic)
No source code till I get a website setup (and that wont happen until I get adequate expression of interest). I would be keen to get the wider community to aid me in the development, but have no experience in how to co-ordinate such activities. All things in time...phase one is get the compiled code out there
I just wanted to say congratulations on what looks like a very promising and useful program. Please keep us updated on your progress. I will be very interested to try it out for myself.
Hadnt looked at Derby. Sticking with what I know I guess. Postgress is pretty low signature (though I dont know how it compares to Derby). I imagine any freeware database will work, except that I do utilize the postgress id sequence allocator, but even then adaption based on platform will be a one-function re-write (perhaps a little extra around the connection handler and use of differing drivers...nothing too hectic)
No source code till I get a website setup (and that wont happen until I get adequate expression of interest). I would be keen to get the wider community to aid me in the development, but have no experience in how to co-ordinate such activities. All things in time...phase one is get the compiled code out there
Forgot to mention that what you have so far looks fantastic!
As to wider community development, IMO you'd want to pick up a small crew of committed developers rather than going open source and set up a source control server (CVS or SVN or what not) for them. You'd be in charge of assigning tasks to your team rather than allow cowboy coding of course.
FYI: Derby is made for this type of project: tiny footprint, configurable data store (can use the filesystem, store in a jar file, etc.), and has an 'embedded JDBC' driver which runs inside your application's JVM instead of starting another process.
Derby Huh...Might give it a closer look. I like the idea of a jdbc compliant db that embeds itself (and is therefore distributable with) within the software itself. That is a nice touch
I was thinking about writing a really simple tool for status, temporary effect and initiative tracking myself - but now as I see someone already did this - and even more ^^
I'd be really glad, if I could use that program.... So here's at least one person with interest
Its not quite ready for release (still a bit buggy, but hey, we are successfully using it every week) and I am still negotiating some website space I can use, but hopefully will have ready within the next month or two. (hopefully)
Just wanted to say it looks really cool and I look forward to messing with it using my own maps
Good luck!
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Dark Water Campaign run in the Last Lands
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Its interesting. A few observations on what people are likely to be looking for just FYI.
There are some very nice generic tools like maptool (RPTools - Home) which is a very good VTT with generalized macro capabilities. The only real issue being there are limits to how much 4e support you can bake into your macros. Recent versions have gone pretty far, but there are still things which are difficult or impossible to implement in maptool.
Personally, given that maptool really is a very good VTT I'm more interested in enhancements to maptool, some more 4e specific offline tools that are cross platform (The DDI stuff being windows only is a show stopper frankly) and things like the skill challenge resolution tool.
Honestly it is of course impossible to compare your application as a VTT with what's out there without being able to try it out, but I'd really urge you to look at what maptool has in that department. It seems a shame to duplicate years of effort in that direction when really maptool is 95% of the way there in terms of core functionality and has 1000's of users contributing. Seems to me maybe some cooperation with the rptools guys would yield interesting results!
Its interesting. A few observations on what people are likely to be looking for just FYI.
There are some very nice generic tools like maptool (RPTools - Home) which is a very good VTT with generalized macro capabilities. The only real issue being there are limits to how much 4e support you can bake into your macros. Recent versions have gone pretty far, but there are still things which are difficult or impossible to implement in maptool.
Personally, given that maptool really is a very good VTT I'm more interested in enhancements to maptool, some more 4e specific offline tools that are cross platform (The DDI stuff being windows only is a show stopper frankly) and things like the skill challenge resolution tool.
Honestly it is of course impossible to compare your application as a VTT with what's out there without being able to try it out, but I'd really urge you to look at what maptool has in that department. It seems a shame to duplicate years of effort in that direction when really maptool is 95% of the way there in terms of core functionality and has 1000's of users contributing. Seems to me maybe some cooperation with the rptools guys would yield interesting results!
I did actually look at map tools, but decided to go in house for two reasons.
a) Im a programmer. I know how to write this stuff. I actually write this as a hobby (i.e. I would have done this anyway)
b) By doing an in house production, I had total control. This means that after every play session I am able to say "What didnt go smoothly?" and take that home to fix the feature. This has left me able to write all the rule support I need the software to handle (keeping in mind, this is just a tool. Its only intended to smooth out a subset of the DM'ing process) directly into the core of it.
Best example is the to-hit rules. As the party goes up levels, the calculations involved get more complicated, and the software evolves to the needs we have before us (rather than the mass consensus of the community).
If, with a macro language (/rules engine) we hit a circumstance that simply was not achieveable or was deemed not a priority for change, we wouldnt have control. Its a question of accuracy and autonomy.
Yeah, I contemplated doing something like this. I certainly have the expertise as well. Seems though like past a certain point of complexity the hours required to do the software development dwarfs actual game time. I'm not certain the result REALLY is better in the sense that what I found in my experimentation is there are a lot of subtle usability things going on with a VTT and frankly having a core platform that 1000's of people have worked out those issues on can be pretty nice.
At least IMHO my wish would be for some more sophisticated plug-in kind of stuff for maptool that would allow to do things that are not really all that doable in script. That and some ways to do a few interesting integration things like importing and exporting monsters and such. Anyway, it will be interesting to see where you can go with this. I suspect its going to be tough to match some of the advanced vision stuff and whatnot that maptool has, but then again I haven't spent a lot of time inside its code.
Oh, and I would definitely second the suggestion to make it possible to set up and use derby or something like that as an embedded database. It should be pretty easy. Actually it might be worth taking a look at using the newer JDO stuff, that should be database agnostic unless you're going to do something quite complex.
Last edited by AbdulAlhazred; 27th August 2009 at 06:28 PM..
If, with a macro language (/rules engine) we hit a circumstance that simply was not achieveable or was deemed not a priority for change, we wouldnt have control. Its a question of accuracy and autonomy.
MapTool is open source and some of the most useful additions late in this version cycle have all been contributed patches. Now, I understand it isn't 100% control, but still something to consider. Even if you aren't interested in "joining up" - which I expect is so since you're so far along - are you planning on making your code source available? Or perhaps pieces that might be fairly neutral problem solving bits that could be useful to others?
I say that selfishly, of course. MapTool's features are amazing and I certainly would love to see another programmer contributing 4E-specific stuff. :-) If you need any additional testers, specifically ones with experience with other VTTs, let me know. Will definitely give it a try...
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Hmmmm Java based app... without even investigating further.... my guess would be it might work just fine.
Not only would it work fine, but what other real choice is there? Anything that isn't cross platform is DOA in my experience. I have 5 players plus me on maptool, one Linux, 2 Mac or Linux, and 3 running windows. Anything that isn't java (or some totally cross platform native app) is useless. My experience with supporting .NET apps is painful as well. Its like the old days of DLL Hell. The apps are nice and they have some very nice GUI design tools but windows-only is no longer acceptable.
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