DDI VT Beta thread

Hussar · Nov 23, 2010

Ooooo, voice fonts. Now THAT is cool.

But, in teh choose a token bit for monster building, does that mean I'm limited to WOTC's tokens? That would suck very hard.

Bagpuss · Nov 23, 2010

Infiniti2000 said:
Well, it says "Campaign Manager." I assume therefore it's in direct competition with Obsidian Portal.

No looking at it and getting responses from Mudbunny at WotC forum. I think it is more like a lobby for games. So it manages the campaigns you can see and play in rather than manages elements of a particular campaign.

Stoat · Nov 23, 2010

Questions for those who know:

1. Is the WotC VTT hosted on WotC's servers or is it running on the DM/players' machines?

2. Is there any function to import custom maps or are you restricted to WotC's tiles?

3. Is there any function to import custom tokens or are you restricted to WotC's tokens?

mudbunny · Nov 23, 2010

Stoat said:
2. Is there any function to import custom maps or are you restricted to WotC's tiles?

3. Is there any function to import custom tokens or are you restricted to WotC's tokens?

Currently, you are limited to the choices in the tool. There are a fair number of map tiles to build maps, but the monsters and players currently choose from the same fairly limited set of tokens. (I am willing to give this a pass as it is in beta right now)

evilref · Nov 23, 2010

mudbunny said:
Currently, you are limited to the choices in the tool. There are a fair number of map tiles to build maps, but the monsters and players currently choose from the same fairly limited set of tokens. (I am willing to give this a pass as it is in beta right now)

Not being able to import my own maps is a significant lacking feature for me. Overall I think the tool's great for what it is, albeit without the monster/character builder imports it's more than a touch lacking compared to maptool. For the average person using the existing tiles makes perfect sense, and of course they should be there as existing art assets.

If, however, you have <large list of cartography/design software> and enjoy making maps, not being able to use them gives the edge to other VTT software.

Mustrum_Ridcully · Nov 23, 2010

mudbunny said:
Currently, you are limited to the choices in the tool. There are a fair number of map tiles to build maps, but the monsters and players currently choose from the same fairly limited set of tokens. (I am willing to give this a pass as it is in beta right now)

I'd definitely make sure to state that you want this option, not that WotC "forgets" it our believes it can sell us tokens or maps via micro-transactions or such nonsense.

Stoat · Nov 23, 2010

I expect that WotC will want to sell me tokens, tiles and maps, and the idea doesn't bother in me in principle. I would, of course, need to see the quality of their product and know their asking price before I would decide to buy.

That said, there is no way WotC can provide all of the images that I want for my game. I can't use WotC's tiles to create every map I want to use. I can't use WotC's images to make every token for every NPC in my game. For this reason, it is important to me that WotC's VTT allow the use of custom maps/tokens. Without that function, the program is significantly less useful for my game.

I may have missed it. Is WotC hosting the VTT or does the DM host? One of my beefs with the VTT's I've used in the past is the general hassle of forwarding ports and hosting the game.

Jan van Leyden · Nov 24, 2010

Mudbunny, at first let me thank for your reporting!

Is there any hint in plain sight or well hidden that this thing will at some time include some scripting or macro support?

Hussar · Nov 24, 2010

mudbunny said:
Currently, you are limited to the choices in the tool. There are a fair number of map tiles to build maps, but the monsters and players currently choose from the same fairly limited set of tokens. (I am willing to give this a pass as it is in beta right now)

Yeah, the ability to import my own images is an absolute must for me. For one, I enjoy making my own maps, but, for another, I like reskinning monsters too much to limit myself to Monster Manual tokens.

This would be a deal breaker for me.

mudbunny · Nov 24, 2010

Stoat said:
I may have missed it. Is WotC hosting the VTT or does the DM host? One of my beefs with the VTT's I've used in the past is the general hassle of forwarding ports and hosting the game.

I have no idea. I will poke some of the more technically-minded testers to see what they say.

Jan van Leyden said:
Mudbunny, at first let me thank for your reporting!

Is there any hint in plain sight or well hidden that this thing will at some time include some scripting or macro support?

I haven't seen anything at all about that. However, I haven't looked all that hard. If you give some examples of some *very* basic scripts/commands that I can test, I can do so. Nothing that would require any sort of macro or anything like that. Some simple roll commands or stuff like that. Depending on what ti gives, it *may* give a hint as to whether it is planned (and just not implemented) or not at this point of the beta.

Hussar said:
Yeah, the ability to import my own images is an absolute must for me. For one, I enjoy making my own maps, but, for another, I like reskinning monsters too much to limit myself to Monster Manual tokens.

This would be a deal breaker for me.

This is getting mentioned afair amount by the testers that I have seen.