What Are You Looking For In A Virtual Table Top

Basalt77 · Feb 11, 2010

I'm fairly new here and I know that a lot of the Devs for the various VTTs peruse the boards. I hope that I'm not stepping on any toes with this. I've tried about a dozen different VTTs in the past little while, trying to find something that would work for me and my friends. Almost all of them have great ideas and tools but I honestly haven't found one that really gets me where I want to go.

A little bit of disclosure, I use the software in a face to face environment. I put the player view of the VTT up on a big screen while I conrol things with a laptop. Obviously this makes the networking side of the equation of less importance to me. I also play D&D 4E for the most part so my 'wants' are heavily tilted in that direction.

And now onto the point of the post. I'll get it started.

The perfect software for me would give me all of the tools that d20pro has along with the mapping abilities of MapTools and some of the polish of Fantasy Grounds. Of course my pie in the sky impossibly perfect software would license the rulesets from each of the game publishers and then offer supplements for when new books are published. That way you could pay for a given ruleset, pay for the supplements that you're going to be using and not have to think about all of the ability/power data entry like you do with most current solutions. I may be in the minoirty but I'd pay as much for those rulesets/supplements as I would for the books themselves.

Getting people into the game becomes very daunting when you take a big pile of books and set it in front of a newbie. That's why I like the DDI Character Creator so much. You just sit them down in front of it and it guides them through every possibility. If I could give them a similar experience in actual game play I'd be pretty damn happy.

Basically I wish WOTC would get off their asses and either contract one of these companies that makes existing VTTs to make a D&D4E official version or license their materials out to them. Their ugly combination of lazy and paranoid isn't winning them too many new customers.

So what are you looking for in a VTT that you're not currently seeing?

*edit* P.S. - I would also love to be able to import characters from DDI character creator and/or Hero Labs.

Redrobes · Feb 11, 2010

As the ViewingDale dev I think you would find it interesting since you are able to use large maps and project them up.

I have a Demo video of it running in x264 format. In there you will see that at any point you can link to pics. You can also link to text, sound, web pages and almost anything in fact so you can link to the D20 monster stats or tables or whatever is hosted on a site or what you can get downloaded.

Theres plenty of sites covering its features but it does also have some projector features for you too. Its a map browser and VTT so you can put your characters on it at any point.

Anyway, I was posting to pick up on your desire to get an official WotC version of a VTT. I just dont get why people want this. Whatever they would deliver would be a compromise to suit their ends. Firstly, although mine is not free, there are free VTTs about. Next I dont think that internally there is the ability to program it. Next I dont see how they can generate revenue from it when people would camp with the free ones anyway. Remember that with MapTool which is pretty popular, the code is open source so they cant license it in any exclusive way. The reason why they dont get of their asses is because theres a big gap between where they are and having something thats competitive.

The way I see it, you have everything you could possibly want right now.

P.S in my sig is Druthruss char sheet which is a screen shot page from ViewingDale of my 4e char on here. Its got links on that page to the current area map image, the game thread and other info too.

Basalt77 · Feb 11, 2010

I understand what you're saying and I agree with you to some extent. That's why I'd like to see WoTC contract a group that already has a decent product that can be tailored to their needs.

As far as free is concerned, I'm not at all interested in free if it costs me time. There are 100 more productive things I could be doing than punching in formulas for every little ability that my players might need. I don't want to have to mess with all of the coding and troubleshooting. I'm willing to pay to not have to do that stuff. I'm willing to pay again to get the suplements and rules updates. I think there are aother people out there in the same boat.

As far as WoTC goes, they've already proven that they understand what I'm looking for with their various DDI utilities. I can generate a character, a monster or find any rule from any one of their books quicker than I've ever been able to before and with a better sense of understanding. That's the kind of stuff I'm looking for and I think these are the kinds of things that we need to push the level of acceptance for VTTs up amongst gamers. Not every one of us can code or have any knowledge of the various graphic design tools that are avialble. I happen to be familiar with both but I still don't want to spend my time doing that kind of stuff. I don't think I'm alone in this.

Picture this: you'd like to get into D&D and you'd like to be able to play with friends around the world. You don't know much about coding or graphics but you play Call of Duty every night with your friends and you can't see how this is any different. So you go looking for what's avaialble and find a ton of stuff, but everything requires a significant time investment before it's usable. You give up in frustration and go back to playing Call of Duty. I've seen this happen again and again in the short time that I've been looking into VTTs.

If WoTC was to endorse a product it would be a very hard day for the rest of the VTTs on the market because, if it was a decent product, it would be the defacto standard in a matter of months. D&D is the 500lb gorilla of the pen and paper world and that isn't going to change any time soon.

azhrei_fje · Feb 12, 2010

Redrobes said:
[...] Next I dont see how they can generate revenue from it when people would camp with the free ones anyway. Remember that with MapTool which is pretty popular, the code is open source so they cant license it in any exclusive way. [...]

Actually, that's not really true. MapTool is licensed under the APL2 -- the Apache Public License 2.0. This license is very similar to the BSD license which allows others to come along and take the code, modifying it and tweaking it as they go, then release it to the world as a "derivative" without any kind of feedback into the MapTool core.

While I would (personally) consider such actions rather shameful and disingenuous, the developers chose the license they wanted to use and I respect that.

If the OP would like to provide some input, we currently have a couple of threads going at the RPTools forums where we are discussing what the next version of MapTool (v1.4) will look like. In essence, everything is on the table but the primary focus is on the UI and packaging. The UI because it's not as pretty as it could be, even though it is functional. And the packaging because we'd like to have "game bundles" where all of the system rules are included in a downloadable package, separate from MapTool. That last part is very important because MapTool is not-for-profit and there's no way we'll be spending our own money to license IP from WotC! However, if the community of users wants to build something that they share within their group then that's up to them.

Basalt77 · Feb 12, 2010

Thanks for the feedback azhrei_fje. I have to say that I really enjoy maptools as it stands. There are only a couple of things that would make it slightly easier to use for me.

Line of sight - I'm not sure how you'd accomplish this but there are different rules on line of sight for different rulesets. D&D 4E requires that 2 corners of attacker's square have a direct line to any two corners of the target's square. You also can't see through enemies so the enemy has to be opaque but visible. The line of sight system in maptools doesn't account for this. I know this is likely a tough one so I'm not holding my breath.

A couple of other things that would be great:

Some kind of library system for frameworks and macros. I want to be able to check what frameworks are running inside of a given campaign. I'd also love to be able to look at what each framework/macro does without needing to go through the code. Some commenting on the part of the authors might accomplish this. Maybe some type of description tag that they can use that Maptools could display in a set way?

Basically most of the uasability issues I have with maptools lie with the fact that you need to code everything yourself or rely on somebody else's project which likely doesn't meet your needs.

I love the ability to work on multiple layers and place separate tiles on the screen that can interact to create a map. It's way more flexible than anything else I've tried with regards to this and still the VTT that I use in face to face gaming. It's not really an option for me if I want to play online though. The networking is easy but my players get frustrated at having to input all of their abilities and frequent miscalculations on our part leads to stops in play that can take much too long to correct. Thankfully I don't play online much.

Redrobes · Feb 12, 2010

I see what your saying. I think that WotC have some issues in that I believe that there has been some agreements made w.r.t video game type programs that have been assigned and that they are tied up for a while. Us external devs are limited in that we cant use their IP without a license and the free licenses all bar the use of programs determining actions based on their rules - at least as I read it a long time ago.

So we have to rely on their tools to do that bit and as you say if they abandon those projects then it takes someone else to stump cash for a license to do it on their behalf. Of the closed source VTT options that have the graphical clout to do it justice, I dont think any are tremendously popular to the point of making it worth while to stump us license fees. MapTool is non profit and as Azrei says nobody is going to spend huge cash piles on a free product. It is true that WotC could take the MapTool code but they could not prevent the other side of the fork from being developed. Thats what I was saying in that they cannot create a MapTool product exclusively and I think we all accept that and they need a dev team capable of taking it further faster than the current set - an unlikely. If they supported the main app then it would still be free and therefore why would anyone buy a PH ?

So as with many things in life but especially business - its all about the money. I wasn't in the least surprised that they pulled the plug on DDI as I never thought it was a good idea to start one in the first place. Whatever solution they come up with has to cope with good free competition.

Basalt77 · Feb 12, 2010

I agree that there are excellent 'for free' products available. Those free products have a strong following and a great community behind them. Though these free options exist there are still for pay options that are doing well in the marketplace.

There is market from one end of the spectrum (expensive premium products) to the other (free). I think that the premium end of the market is underserviced. Of course people aren't going to flock to the expensive products if the free product is just as good. A product that will warrant that kind of money will need a high level of polish and not require users to go 'under the hood.' Keep in mind that when I say premium I'm taking $50 - $100, not $500.

If what you're saying is that WoTC isn't licensing their product for a VTT type application because it would impinge on the contracts that they have with video game companies, that's a very valid point and something that I wasn't aware of. I didn't think there would be much crossover with the two products but, now that you bring it up, it makes a lot of sense.

Redrobes · Feb 13, 2010

I heard, tho I am not sure of the details, that they dished out a D&D game license and there has been some ding dong about it for a while q.f. Atari. Whether its about sub licensing or whether its about the exclusivity of the gaming license I dont know.

All the VTT makers go "game agnostic" so you have to do all the rule typing yourselves if you want them. I dont think that there is a mechanism by which you can put one in and distribute it. Hasbro are a bit large to go treading on toes.

For me personally I think the VTT should make up for the loss of ability when people are remote. That is it should have rapid feedback / updates, enforce trust, allow as much expression to be transferred across the link etc. But I dont think they should do more than if you were sat around the table with dice and pencils. I dont like the auto calculations, critical rerolls, initiative tracking etc. You can put markers up on the map with the party and arrows pointing at who is next etc but I think the GM should move the arrow not the PC. I like links to the information you need to make all the decisions tho. Thats my opinion but I understand those who have come from the MMO world may think differently and I enjoyed the Neverwinter Nights games as well but its not real FRPG.

Aeolius · Feb 13, 2010

On the simple side I want a platform-agnostic VTT that supports movement in 3 dimensions, multiple game systems (preferably 3.5e or d20), and monsters as PCs.

Looking ahead, I want a VTT that supports augmented-reality technologies:

With technologies such as THESE on the horizon, I envision putting on augmented-reality glasses, looking down at a mini on a battlemat, and seeing spell/weapon ranges, vision/lighting effects, obscurement/fog of war, and more. In addition to an "augmented mini" superimposed over your actual mini, there could be "virtual minis" for players gaming over the internet.

The synergy of imagination with emerging technologies such as augmented-reality eyewear , brain-controlled interfaces like the Emotic Epoc , and 3D controllers like the ones from 3dconnexion will make D&D as immersive an experience as Avatar.