I Did a Little Experiment and I'm Impressed.

The DDI VTT is now in open Beta, so, I figured I'd give it a test spin.

I've played using VTT's for quite some time now. I started out with OpenRPG for several years and then migrated over to Maptool once Maptool got that much better. While I'm new to the WOTC VTT, I'm hardly new to virtual tabletops in general.

So, I did a little experiment. I picked a module from Dungeon - Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (The Dungeon of the Ghost Tower) - The Dungeon Of the Ghost Tower - mostly at random. I just wanted something low level that I could prep.

I opened up the PDF at 11 PM here. It's now 12:20 as I type this and I'm completely, 100% done with all prep for the module.

WOW.

The tools are pretty intuitive, although there's still much room for improvement. But, for a 4e game? Man, that's the cat's ass. Drop down the tiles, drop down the monsters and poof, you're done.

Doing the same level of prep in Maptools would take me easily twice as long. Simply coding the macros for the monsters would take twice that time and I'm pretty quick at coding monster macros. I should be, I coded several thousand of them for the World's Largest Dungeon. I set up the entire module, as written in a bit over an hour.

I'm still kinda agog at this. I've never seen a VTT prep go that quickly.

Now, let's not forget that there's some improvements that should be made - more tokens for one. There's a ridiculously small number of tokens available and that's just stupid. Chucking up tokens takes someone a few minutes. And the fact that I cannot import my own map images leaves me somewhat cold, as well as a lack of an "DM only" layer on the map.

But, give them time. As far as being able to drop down adventures at the drop of a hat goes though, that's pretty damn sweet.

Yeah, that is definitely the VT's strength. In terms of features available during play it is still quite a bit behind Maptool, but then again it DOES have the most necessary core features. They really need to add a few things though, like the ability to draw instead of just using tiles. A real FoW and line of sight/lighting system like Maptool has would be a huge advance too. A DM layer or some other way to hide and reveal stuff that was easy to use would again be a big plus. They also do clearly need to allow for DMs to use their own token images and whatnot too. There are some other things that would be quite nice to have, though a lot of them might as well be considered more 'campaign management' tools vs things that have to be in the VT itself.

I'm okay dropping the LoS / lighting system from maptools - I actually never use it, after my initial uses showed me it slowed down gameplay and game prep.

But I can't do VTT without being able to add my own images for tokens and maps. That's a dealbreaker for me.

I'll have to try out WotC's VTT again to see if the macros are more usable - I don't need quite the freedom of Maptools, but I need more than it had when I tried it several months ago.

Huh! I found the LoS/FoW/Lighting features to be by far the strongest point of the whole thing. I can set up a 'dungeon' map, set FoW on, set 'night', draw some boxes on the vision blocking layer, and things are all set to go. The players always see exactly what their characters can view and the map is revealed automatically as they explore. That seems like a HUGE time saver to me in play to me. Basically it is a whole set of things I don't have to deal with manually and I can always be confident I haven't forgotten to reveal stuff the PCs should be able to see nor that the players have access to a bunch of information the characters wouldn't have. TBH I doubt I would use another VTT at this point that didn't have at least the vision stuff. I guess I could live without the lighting features, but I'd miss those a lot too.

Hussar said:

Doing the same level of prep in Maptools would take me easily twice as long. Simply coding the macros for the monsters would take twice that time and I'm pretty quick at coding monster macros. I should be, I coded several thousand of them for the World's Largest Dungeon. I set up the entire module, as written in a bit over an hour.

Click to expand...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there really isn't any macroing to set up in the VTT, right? Wondering if you subtract the macroing time, how do they stack up against each other then?

Now, let's not forget that there's some improvements that should be made - more tokens for one. There's a ridiculously small number of tokens available and that's just stupid. Chucking up tokens takes someone a few minutes. And the fact that I cannot import my own map images leaves me somewhat cold, as well as a lack of an "DM only" layer on the map.

Click to expand...

Everything you said here is pretty much why I'm not going to even experiment with the VTT with my players yet. I love the simplicity, the drag and drop, and being able to import monsters and characters. But the limitations keep it out of my game for the time being. (not a complaint, I understand it's still beta, but I'm still a little floored at the lack of tokens and art) One other big thing I think is missing are underground cavern tiles. Underground dungeons are fine, but I'm perplexed at the lack of cave tiles.

But, give them time. As far as being able to drop down adventures at the drop of a hat goes though, that's pretty damn sweet.

Click to expand...

Yep, it looks like the loooooong wait will finally be worth it.

Dungeon tiles are no way to make a dungeon for me, and for me, they never will be enough.

I need to be able to grab my own images and make tokens and maps out of them.

If you're running a module or something it might work just fine, and it certainly has potential. It's not yet ready for prime time, though. Needs Moar Flexibility.

keterys said:

I'm okay dropping the LoS / lighting system from maptools - I actually never use it, after my initial uses showed me it slowed down gameplay and game prep.

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There are ways and means of using lighting in Maptools that make it perfectly workable, however admittedly it requires a few tricks that aren't in the manual and tend to only be known by advanced users.

As for macro prep, in Maptools it depends on the framework being used. Without a framework, Maptools macros are very simplistic and on that level, the DDI VTT has a slight advantage in that it builds the macros for you. The thing with that is, however, that the macros that the DDI VTT builds are at the same very simplistic level that a basic, non-framework Maptools macro would be.

Throw in a good framework and although tokens might take a little longer to make, they are FAR more sophisticated and powerful. With the level of sophistication and power of a Maptools token when used with a good framework, gameplay is sped up immensely. The mere thought of playing a near paragon or paragon + game with the DDI VTT makes me want to tear my eyes out from the sheer frustration and boredom of it all as I wait ten years between turns.

There are, IMO, only two features of the DDI VTT that stand out and that I would like to see implemented elsewhere. The first one is the game organisation tool which sets the game time and converts it to each person's local time for them so that there's absolutely no confusion over when a game is going to be played for a multi-national group.

The second thing is the voice alteration feature. I like putting on voices for my characters but sometimes it's hard to mimic a female voice or in particular, a child's voice, and sometimes doing dwarven voices makes my throat sore.

Kzach said:

There are ways and means of using lighting in Maptools that make it perfectly workable, however admittedly it requires a few tricks that aren't in the manual and tend to only be known by advanced users.

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It may be worth mentioning that I effectively ignore lighting and "LoS" (for purposes of the map) in actual tabletop too...

Folks all have sunrods or similar which is almost always far enough, I'm okay folks seeing the map enough to play the encounter. I don't tend to do dungeon crawls... and even when I played Undermountain in Maptools, I still vastly preferred just using standard fog of war (manual erasing) over the amazing dreariness of setting up LOS blockers for that maze instead.

As for macro prep, in Maptools it depends on the framework being used. Without a framework, Maptools macros are very simplistic and on that level, the DDI VTT has a slight advantage in that it builds the macros for you. The thing with that is, however, that the macros that the DDI VTT builds are at the same very simplistic level that a basic, non-framework Maptools macro would be.

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Yeah... I don't even use a maptools framework, usually (cause, again, they tend to slow the game down*), but my macros are _light years_ ahead of DDI's and I like having that option.

* It's worth note that the macros I do use in maptools toggle for use, so that tracking is covered, and for AE can take # of targets. I just find veggie way too annoying to view (too verbose / ugly), deviantnull's various toggles and targeting slower than just coping (though the character sheet is nice), and every framework I've used (especially Rumble) just flat out _slower_ presumably due to processing time on all the bells and whistles.

That said, I would recommend that WotC compare what you can do with Maptools and DeviantNull, say, to their own framework. Streamline a little, make it so you can load fast, but don't drop some of the critical functionality, and I'll swap in a heartbeat.

I would love that voice alteration software, I'll admit.

keterys said:

Folks all have sunrods or similar which is almost always far enough, I'm okay folks seeing the map enough to play the encounter. I don't tend to do dungeon crawls... and even when I played Undermountain in Maptools, I still vastly preferred just using standard fog of war (manual erasing) over the amazing dreariness of setting up LOS blockers for that maze instead.

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I'm kinda anal so I don't mind setting up VBL's. I've also found it far quicker and easier just to use the hollow rectangular VBL tool for everything and just layer/stack VBL's instead of rigidly using the line tool for every nook and turn.

The main reason I use it isn't just to hide encounter areas that haven't been traversed, but it's also to provide a sense of depth and immersion for the players. It's scary not to know what's around the corner

keterys said:

Yeah... I don't even use a maptools framework, usually (cause, again, they tend to slow the game down*), but my macros are _light years_ ahead of DDI's and I like having that option.

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Again, there are ways of getting around the slowing issue. With Veggie's in particular, you really need to set your stack size to a minimum of 10 (I use 12) and also the Max Mem setting to at least 2GB (I have it at 4GB, but my comp has 12GB and when I run games I only have Maptools, Safari and TeamSpeak open).

With the above settings, the only problem I ever experience with Veggie's is when targeting more than 6 mobs with a macro. That's so rare though that it's really not a problem just to use the macro twice for the extra targets. But I get no slow-downs, no crashes, everything runs very smoothly. In fact, I really think that the Maptools team have done themselves and the community a bit of a disservice in having the default RAM settings so low. Sure, it means it has a lower RAM footprint, but it also severely limits the map sizes, token amounts, loading times, VBL drawing, macro processing, etc.

Kzach said:

I'm kinda anal so I don't mind setting up VBL's. I've also found it far quicker and easier just to use the hollow rectangular VBL tool for everything and just layer/stack VBL's instead of rigidly using the line tool for every nook and turn.

The main reason I use it isn't just to hide encounter areas that haven't been traversed, but it's also to provide a sense of depth and immersion for the players. It's scary not to know what's around the corner


Again, there are ways of getting around the slowing issue. With Veggie's in particular, you really need to set your stack size to a minimum of 10 (I use 12) and also the Max Mem setting to at least 2GB (I have it at 4GB, but my comp has 12GB and when I run games I only have Maptools, Safari and TeamSpeak open).

With the above settings, the only problem I ever experience with Veggie's is when targeting more than 6 mobs with a macro. That's so rare though that it's really not a problem just to use the macro twice for the extra targets. But I get no slow-downs, no crashes, everything runs very smoothly. In fact, I really think that the Maptools team have done themselves and the community a bit of a disservice in having the default RAM settings so low. Sure, it means it has a lower RAM footprint, but it also severely limits the map sizes, token amounts, loading times, VBL drawing, macro processing, etc.

Click to expand...

Yeah, we eventually settled on Rumble. It can be slow, but frankly it seemed like the easiest of the full frameworks to deal with overall. The big issues though are always setting up macros on monsters and maintaining PC macro sets. I don't care what anyone says, there are 5000 ways to totally screw up a macro and 3 ways to maybe get it right. You can spend a really inordinate amount of time on that, and in fact we all eventually tired of the whole rigamarole after a couple years and the online group has gone on to using lightweight customized rules adapted specifically for quick play on the VTT.

Allocating huge amounts of RAM and stack is great, except of course for the fact that most players don't have more than 4 gigs of RAM on their systems. You can ALMOST get good performance in a full framework and still have memory left for a web browser and whatnot on a 4 gig machine, but honestly MT could really afford some heavy memory optimization. Calling the code 'inefficient' is sort of like calling the universe 'big', lol.

It is still a great tool. I just got tired of DMing 4e with it after a couple years. The prep time can be pretty steep.