FANTASY GROUNDS Goes 3D With TABLETOP CONNECT

Fantasy Grounds, the officially licensed D&D virtual tabletop software, has just acquired Tabletop Connect, a 3D virtual tabletop which was successfully Kickstarted a couple of years ago. "Tabletop Connect is a system-neutral 3D virtual tabletop that lets you connect with your friends to play role-playing games just like you’re around a real table. You play in a true 3D environment—with miniatures, terrain tiles, physics simulated dice, character sheets, and handouts—you can almost feel the dice in your hands." Already one of the big two VTTs (the other being Roll20), this looks like it'll take online virtual tabletop gaming to a whole new level.

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Here's the full press release:

I am pleased to announce that Tabletop Connect has been acquired by SmiteWorks USA, LLC, the developer of the industry leading Fantasy Grounds virtual tabletop. As part of this acquisition I will be joining the SmiteWorks team to accelerate the port of Fantasy Grounds to the Unity platform. "

Doug Davison, President and Co-Owner of SmiteWorks added, "We have a distinct vision of what virtual tabletops can and should look like over the coming years and how Smiteworks can accomplish those things with Fantasy Grounds. For that reason, we began porting the core engine for Fantasy Grounds to Unity so that we could streamline and enhance the experience for players and GM's alike and distribute it more easily across all platforms. We've been following the progress of Tabletop Connect since it launched on Kickstarter and we've been very impressed with what Carl has been able to produce as a one-man operation. He shares the same vision we do on many areas and brings a unique level of talent, passion and creativity that is very hard to find. After some great one-on-one discussions, we believe that together we can do more than we could working separately. Work has been progressing on the Unity rebuild for the last year and I am genuinely excited about how the addition of Carl to the team will allow us to speed up the completion of this project and provide additional enhancements to the resulting product. "

During the development of Tabletop Connect your feedback and support have been invaluable. This is a unique opportunity to contribute to the next generation of virtual tabletops and to deliver the experience that you deserve.

As a backer of Tabletop Connect, you should soon receive the details of the realignment to Fantasy Grounds and your options during this transition.

Sincerely, thanks again for all of your support and I look forward to you joining me on this exciting new adventure!

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Tabletop Connect is here. Fantasy Grounds is, of course, here.

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[Nylanfs]

Have you tried Hamachi?

 

[smiteworks]

For me, one of the most exciting aspects of this is: Fantasy Grounds is licenced to produce VTT versions of Wizards of the Coast content. Their modules are almost word-for-word and map-for-map the same as the published (book) adventures. It would be thrilling if FG started making WotC adventures with 3D versions of all their maps!

The need for port forwarding will go away once the move to Unity is complete.

 

[Hussar]

The need for port forwarding will go away once the move to Unity is complete.

Is there any sort of timeline for the move? I totally get you don't want to pin yourself down, but, are we talking weeks, months or years?

 

[GMMichael]

Fantasy Grounds is licenced to produce VTT versions of Wizards of the Coast content. Their modules are almost word-for-word and map-for-map the same as the published (book) adventures.

This. If I were WotC, I'd produce about 5 new downloadable contents (DLCs) for every new book that comes out. Monster set. NPC set. Tileset. Cost to reproduce and deliver that content to many interested parties: $0.

"Who cared if it worked?" - Dick Jones, Robocop

Good for the thousands of players who like tabletop/video game hybrids, but I'm with the one or two other guys in this thread who don't like visuals mucking up their visualizations.

And I thought Old School was so prevalent that it was the new norm? Tabletop Connect begs to differ.

 

[Hussar]

Umm, I used visualizations back in the 80's. How is using minis not old school?

 

[pming]

Hiya!

What I'm curious about is... will I be able to import my own assets (sounds, textures, particle effects, 3d models, etc) into it? I know the whole DLC thing is all the rage, but, well, I can create my own textures, 3d models/animations, and particle effects. I'd love to be able to import my own creations into the 'engine' so I could really give my players exactly what they/I want.

Last info I could dig up on it was back in March, which had Tabletop Connect guys (?) ...some guy going by "BOB", iirc... saying "Nope". If it's still no... then I'm definitely passing. Nothing would annoy me more than seeing stuff that I would have to buy that I could make my own!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Has anyone had any good experiences with tablets or digital tables (physical) for their games?

Good experiences with tablets? Yes. I use my Surface Pro 3 as a notepad to keep track of init and monster hitpoints. When playing, I use a PDF copy of my character and write hitpoints and treasure directly on the screen. I save to the cloud and I always have an updated version of my character sheet accessible from any of my devices whenever I want. I can quickly switch to a PDF reader to read PDF copies of the books for some games, but I generally use my iPad to read the PDF copies of adventures or rule books while I use my Surface for notes.

As for digital tables. I've had some mediocre success in the past. Most of the time the setup takes too long or is too complicated to use it on a regular basis unless everyone in the game was already set up and running. My issues tended to be problems with people connecting or disconnecting. Then issues with macros for making attacks. Everyone wanted to make a macro for each iterative attack in our 3.5e games and there were almost always issues with the math on them. Then there were weird technical glitches like "minis" that wouldn't move or lines that you drew and couldn't be erased.

I tried almost all of the available software but I've never used Tabletop Connect. I tried Fantasy Grounds many years ago but ran into issues with it as well. Mainly the price. I'm sure at least some of the issues have been fixed over the years.

 

[wedgeski]

For me, one of the most exciting aspects of this is: Fantasy Grounds is licenced to produce VTT versions of Wizards of the Coast content. Their modules are almost word-for-word and map-for-map the same as the published (book) adventures. It would be thrilling if FG started making WotC adventures with 3D versions of all their maps!

I really can't see this happening, not if they want to continue to align their releases with WotC's. Happy to be wrong, though.

 

[Nylanfs]

Hiya!

What I'm curious about is... will I be able to import my own assets (sounds, textures, particle effects, 3d models, etc) into it? I know the whole DLC thing is all the rage, but, well, I can create my own textures, 3d models/animations, and particle effects. I'd love to be able to import my own creations into the 'engine' so I could really give my players exactly what they/I want.
Paul L. Ming

Well you can do this now with FG, so I would imagine that when they start getting into integrating 3d and 2d they will keep the same philosophy.

 

[mangamuscle]

If this becomes like NWN in the sense that a community does tons of extra addons for free, this could become HUGE!