D&D General Do you want a 3D vtt?

[Steel_Wind]

Again, that would be a total non-starter for me. I don't think my wife would appreciate me lugging the desktop computer downstairs to the router every week just so I could not use the wifi. Granted, I have just bought a MUCH better wifi router which has made all my other problems go away. Which is nice.

I'm guessing that it you wanted to make it a priority, you could either:

a) move the router; or
b) run a cat 6 cable through the wall and down to where it needed to be to come out and plug into your router. You know, like a grown-up homeowner, and not a college student

In all seriousness, we play online with Zoom and FVTT running and everyone has multiple monitors so we are not playing with disembodied voices, but gaming with friends. It is the main social activity each of us participates in, in our lives. Which means most of my best friends live 3,000+ miles away. We want that to work - and work well.

So we each run a hard line to make sure it all works the very best that it can. We make it a priority.

 

[Hussar]

Sorry, but, if I have to drill holes through two floors and several walls of my house to play your VTT, I'm not really interested.

To be fair, this is a particularly Japanese thing where they absolutely refuse to wire houses properly. My entire house has one phone jack. It's insane. At least I actually have cable jacks for TV's in every room - which I don't need because the wifi will cover streaming just as well now. :/

But, yeah, there are some things I'm not really willing to do to support my hobby. Can't move the router since there's only one place the router can actually be, and I'd need to drill through the floor into the attic, run it through the crawl space to the opposite end of the house and then down through the ceiling in that room. That's not going to happen.

I've played VTT's for a long time - not seeing the faces of the players doesn't bother me at all. Good grief, your monitors must be enormous. Running Zoom for face takes up a fair bit of screen and then maps at 150px/square? Yikes. Half my players are on laptops. They've got like less than 20 inch screens. There's no way we could do that.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I've played VTT's for a long time - not seeing the faces of the players doesn't bother me at all. Good grief, your monitors must be enormous. Running Zoom for face takes up a fair bit of screen and then maps at 150px/square? Yikes. Half my players are on laptops. They've got like less than 20 inch screens. There's no way we could do that.

3 x 27" @ 1080p each -- and another 55" @ 4K if needed.

We won't play with disembodied voices. I often feel that the reason many ppl here decry the lack of socialization during play via VTT as off-putting is because they are not using mult-monitors with a hard cable.

The hard cable isn't for the VTT -- it's for Zoom or Skype Video on top of the VTT.

 

[Hussar]

3 x 27" @ 1080p each -- and another 55" @ 4K if needed.

We won't play with disembodied voices. I often feel that the reason many ppl here decry the lack of socialization during play via VTT as off-putting is because they are not using mult-monitors with a hard cable.

The hard cable isn't for the VTT -- it's for Zoom or Skype Video on top of the VTT.

Umm, I can run a zoom room for over a hundred students, along with numerous applications running simultaneously just fine on a decent wifi connection. If you need that much hardware just to run your VTT, that's hardly a good look. Good grief, you don't need that kind of hardware to play MMO's or AAA online games.

As it is, I still use Discord plus Fantasy Grounds. I had some issues but, that was because my router was absolutely garbage. Just updated my router recently and it's all smooth sailing. Not so much as a lag anymore. The idea that I need FOUR monitors plus a hard line just to play D&D online is way outside the reach of most VTT players I've ever seen.

Like I said, half my group is on laptops. And, most of them are on wifi as well. And, we've had zero connection issues using Discord and Fantasy Grounds.

 

[MNblockhead]

Sorry, but, if I have to drill holes through two floors and several walls of my house to play your VTT, I'm not really interested.

To be fair, this is a particularly Japanese thing where they absolutely refuse to wire houses properly. My entire house has one phone jack. It's insane. At least I actually have cable jacks for TV's in every room - which I don't need because the wifi will cover streaming just as well now. :/

But, yeah, there are some things I'm not really willing to do to support my hobby. Can't move the router since there's only one place the router can actually be, and I'd need to drill through the floor into the attic, run it through the crawl space to the opposite end of the house and then down through the ceiling in that room. That's not going to happen.

I've played VTT's for a long time - not seeing the faces of the players doesn't bother me at all. Good grief, your monitors must be enormous. Running Zoom for face takes up a fair bit of screen and then maps at 150px/square? Yikes. Half my players are on laptops. They've got like less than 20 inch screens. There's no way we could do that.

I don't think you need to hard wire if you have a good 5g wifi router, esp. if you get a good mesh system, and even more especially if it supports quality-of-service features to help prioritize your gaming traffic.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Umm, I can run a zoom room for over a hundred students, along with numerous applications running simultaneously just fine on a decent wifi connection. If you need that much hardware just to run your VTT, that's hardly a good look. Good grief, you don't need that kind of hardware to play MMO's or AAA online games.

As it is, I still use Discord plus Fantasy Grounds. I had some issues but, that was because my router was absolutely garbage. Just updated my router recently and it's all smooth sailing. Not so much as a lag anymore. The idea that I need FOUR monitors plus a hard line just to play D&D online is way outside the reach of most VTT players I've ever seen.

Like I said, half my group is on laptops. And, most of them are on wifi as well. And, we've had zero connection issues using Discord and Fantasy Grounds.

Only one of the nine of us is on a laptop. Everyone else is on a desktop, multi-monitor setup. We are middle-aged men in our 40s/50s -- not students. As the GM/DM, I go with 3 monitors: Adventure/Game rules (PDF or DDB) on left, FVTT on centre, Zoom/Skype on right. For players, it's FVTT on one, Zoom/Skype on the other.

As for Zoom requirements and hard line -- yes, you can get away with a fair number of participants on Zoom. Skype video? Not so much. Six participants starts to push the system, and the speed of the slowest ship has an impact here. Wi-Fi lag surfaces under that use. Hardlines make it vanish. One of my players has a Zoom server at work we use for the campaign he plays in, it's Skype on the other I run without him. With Skype, it's noticeable. On those rare cases where a 6th player is present the whole things starts to get a wee bit creaky at that point. Add in the distance of spanning 5 times zones (some times, 10 time zones of distance between all players when one of the players is in the UK) and it all adds up.

Discord used as a voice program has a negligible impact - it's video which causes issues. Discord video is the worst of all of them. We do not use it.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Not for me, personally. Having it be 3D will limit the amount of assets available, particularly the community's ability to provide those assets. 2D maps and pogs/tokens would be both cheaper and more plentiful.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

So who the heck was asking for a 3-d VTT in the first place?

WOTC's monetization guys, when they realized they can sell models of digital orcs with swords for $4+ each, give em an axe, and sell em again for another $4.

 

[Hussar]

Only one of the nine of us is on a laptop. Everyone else is on a desktop, multi-monitor setup. We are middle-aged men in our 40s/50s -- not students. As the GM/DM, I go with 3 monitors: Adventure/Game rules (PDF or DDB) on left, FVTT on centre, Zoom/Skype on right. For players, it's FVTT on one, Zoom/Skype on the other.

As for Zoom requirements and hard line -- yes, you can get away with a fair number of participants on Zoom. Skype video? Not so much. Six participants starts to push the system, and the speed of the slowest ship has an impact here. Wi-Fi lag surfaces under that use. Hardlines make it vanish. One of my players has a Zoom server at work we use for the campaign he plays in, it's Skype on the other I run without him. With Skype, it's noticeable. On those rare cases where a 6th player is present the whole things starts to get a wee bit creaky at that point. Add in the distance of spanning 5 times zones (some times, 10 time zones of distance between all players when one of the players is in the UK) and it all adds up.

Discord used as a voice program has a negligible impact - it's video which causes issues. Discord video is the worst of all of them. We do not use it.

Heh.

None of us are students and we’re also in our 40’s. But thanks for the condescension.

Like I said, if you need three monitors to run your game, that’s far, far too much for anything I’d be interested in.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

WOTC's monetization guys, when they realized they can sell models of digital orcs with swords for $4+ each, give em an axe, and sell em again for another $4.

Maybe wait till their is evidence of this before claiming it.

It’s far more likely to me that owning the monster manual will get access to its monsters.