Give me your virtual tabletop xp

[Griogre]

so what's the best voice chat option? Does everyone around the table need a headset? How does this work?

Tell them to get a headset - and turn off their speakers. I strongly agree it is much more pleasant for everyone if the whole group uses headsets.

I use teamspeak, but they are all really the same now. It use to be that Skype and Ventrillo only let you connect to four people or so for free but now they have all moved it up to more reasonable sizes. I think the only remaining difference is that Vent and Skype assume broadband connections while TS, depending on server configuration, can adjust codex’s on the fly and can run one at dialup speeds. The quality sucks but if you got a player on the road in a hotel that ability can be nice.

 

[wedgeski]

I will never, ever pay for a VTT program. And here's why: I almost always DM and I have for years. Yet every pay VTT program out there makes you pay extra to get the "DM Version" of the program. What the heck?!?! If I'm DMing, that means I've got at least one other player, and probably four or five. That means for every DM client they sell, they also sell four or five player clients as well.

I think the point is that the players are paying half price, not that the DM is paying more. If everyone was on a flat license then you can bet it wouldn't be the $19.95 one (or whatever it is for the Lite version).

In any case, as a direct consequence of this thread, we'll be augmenting our once-a-month F2F game with fortnightly Fantasy Grounds games as well. I'm all worked up about it too.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I think the point is that the players are paying half price, not that the DM is paying more. If everyone was on a flat license then you can bet it wouldn't be the $19.95 one (or whatever it is for the Lite version).

but as was pointed out, a person buying the DM version pretty much guarantees a number of player version sales. De-incentivising DMing on their platform seems like a poor selling strategy. Perhaps simply selling the full software with a set number of installs available would be the easiest. This would also allow groups to alternate DMs.

 

[wedgeski]

but as was pointed out, a person buying the DM version pretty much guarantees a number of player version sales. De-incentivising DMing on their platform seems like a poor selling strategy.

A player (Lite) license can connect to *any* DM (Full) License, so there isn't necessarily a strong corellation except for whole groups taking up the software from scratch. You also have to factor in that if you buy block FG licenses together (say, 1xDM and 4xplayer), you get pretty good discounts. I don't want this to turn into a sales pitch for FG, but I personally don't think the 'Why does the DM pay twice as much' criticism holds a lot of water. It's a yoke that DM's have had to bear pretty much since the inception of the game, isn't it?

 

[catsclaw227]

but as was pointed out, a person buying the DM version pretty much guarantees a number of player version sales. De-incentivising DMing on their platform seems like a poor selling strategy. Perhaps simply selling the full software with a set number of installs available would be the easiest. This would also allow groups to alternate DMs.

This is how I would like to see it. Sell a starter pack of licenses, GM plus 4 players, at a slightly higher rate and then add extra player licenses at an incremental rate, or sell a second pack of 3-4 client licenses.

Either this or sell the main GM package and any number of clients can connect. This way, there is one fee, and the players/Gms can pitch in and buy the software together.

I really feel that putting to much of the game into the VTT really takes away from the RPG feeling and makes it almost more of a video game. All you need is a map, tokens to place on the map, character sheets, a way to roll dice.....and you are good.

FYI -- I am really starting to like BattlegroundsRPG, now that I am playing around with it, for these reasons. It is mostly just a map viewer, dice roller and chat. Character sheets are sort of supported, but I also use DM Genie as a dm to manage that part of the game. One thing they need to fix is the ability to load maps, with token assets (like moveable tables, chests, creatures, etc) and predefined fog of war from web storage. You can load a map that is found on the web, but it's not well documented. I have very average (384kbps) upload speeds, and my players all have fast download (3MB/s or more), so allowing for us to pull them down from my host (I will FTP them up pre-game) will be much faster, and not dependent upon my DSL speeds for that.

 

[heruca]

I can only speak on Battlegrounds' pricing policy...

The GM Client costs twice as much as the Player Client, but IMO it is a bargain, because it has 3-4 times as many features, and it also doubles as a Player Client if someone else is running a game.

A bundle of Floating Licenses is available at a discount, but the idea is not to make the GM have to be the one to pay for everyone's software. Rather, it's to allow a real-life gaming group to pool its resources in order to qualify for a bulk discount.

I have a hunch that game attendance is probably higher for users of commercial VTs, compared to users of the free VTs. If the players have invested in the software, they'll want to get more play value out of it, so they are less likely to miss a session.

If a player uses their $15 VT software even just 20 times a year for two years, it's only costing them around 37 cents per multi-hour game session. That ratio of price to entertainment value is pretty hard to beat, if you think about it.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I have a hunch that game attendance is probably higher for users of commercial VTs, compared to users of the free VTs. If the players have invested in the software, they'll want to get more play value out of it, so they are less likely to miss a session.

but its equally likely that getting a VT game started is significantly easier if you are asking people to download free software as opposed to "wanna play in my play by chat, please pay $15 to answer yes...."

If a player uses their $15 VT software even just 20 times a year for two years, it's only costing them around 37 cents per multi-hour game session. That ratio of price to entertainment value is pretty hard to beat, if you think about it.

except that they already have to pay for the internet hook up, possibly at an upgrade if you have to host the game on your computer.... It's like on-demand. Sure, the cost might be less than a rental, but if I'm already paying for premium cable, why would I double pay to watch a movie on it even if it's a small amount?

 

[Wye]

It is game system agnostic, so any game will work in it. I really feel that putting to much of the game into the VTT really takes away from the RPG feeling and makes it almost more of a video game. All you need is a map, tokens to place on the map, character sheets, a way to roll dice.....and you are good.

My thoughts too, check out our philosophy, a philosophy that was carried over since the 1st incarnation (non-public) of the app years ago.

It is free, so getting new people to try it out is trivial.

I can speak volumes on this, but won't on this thread. I'll only say that the beta is free but will disappear as soon as I finish the release version.

Despite the fact that there are millions of gamers out there, finding players can actually be difficult due to time zones and real life.

With this I agree.

It runs on java, so it is OS independent, thus our Mac friends can play with us if they want (and dont believe the 'java is slow' crap). This allows you to have a larger audience of potential gamers to interact with.

Java is not slow, but native code is oodles faster. I can talk directly with the video card using native code and produce better results. Try a large map and move and zoom about in GlitterComm to see what I'm talking about.
On the other hand being multiplatform is a plus that GlitterComm doesn't have. I don't have a Mac, and every single person I know that does, have either another PC with Windows, or Windows on their Macs. I've never seen it as a big plus, but your experience may vary.

The RPTools team that is developing Maptool (and other RPG tools) are kick ass, very responsive to suggestions, and updates come out nearly weekly (I dare any other vtt to make that claim).

I did it
GlitterComm had updates more than once a week for a while, then I slowed it down to once a week as to not confuse people with so many versions. Then again, not many people were aware of its existence and input was mainly from my group and a couple of other groups.

The Fog of War in Maptool adds an amazing level of atmosphere to role playing that I have never seen. When I see players peeking around corners wondering what was around the next bend, and can hear the tension in their voice, it is stunning. You want complete immersion into the game world? This is as close as I have seen in a role playing game, real or virtual.

I thought fog of war was pretty standard, I didn't even bothered adding that to the feature list on my website. I know Battlegrounds has it, as well as Fantasy Grounds. Heck, Gametable has it.

I have very average (384kbps) upload speeds, and my players all have fast download (3MB/s or more), so allowing for us to pull them down from my host (I will FTP them up pre-game) will be much faster, and not dependent upon my DSL speeds for that.

When I 1st started coding GlitterComm one of my players was on dial-up. This is taken into consideration in the design. GlitterComm is polite with your bandwidth and uses an intelligent transfer system so you can start using the map right away without waiting for the whole thing to be transfered (no matter how large a map).

 

[snikle]

... I personally don't think the 'Why does the DM pay twice as much' criticism holds a lot of water. It's a yoke that DM's have had to bear pretty much since the inception of the game, isn't it?

I so completely disagree with this philosophy. Having been a GM for roughly 25 years in various platforms, it rather irks me that people just assume that it is a yoke GMs have to bear. I cannot think of how many game systems I have purchased, how many countless hours I have spent thinking/developing/witting my games...players rarely put in even a percentage of the time the GMs do. Course maybe I am biased.

I can speak volumes on this, but won't on this thread. I'll only say that the beta is free but will disappear as soon as I finish the release version.

In accordance with my post above, and happening to be a member of one of the pro-vtt websites out there from nearly the beginning, I think GMs can generate enormous interest and sales for vtts out there, so I wholeheartedly agree with you. Just check out the FUM forums and you will see how many people try different vtts freely...heck one of our FUMites was the one that directed us all to your site actually. A word of advice though, offer a free demo of your software, especially if it will allow players to log into an existing license that an active GM holds, this will allow novices to check how advanced users use the software. Fail to do that, and your software will flounder, given the competition. During iCOn we saw tons of people interested, but few would take the plunge without a free sneak peek at what it can do, screen shots don't cut it.

I thought fog of war was pretty standard, I didn't even bothered adding that to the feature list on my website. I know Battlegrounds has it, as well as Fantasy Grounds. Heck, Gametable has it.

Roger, however implementation is different across the board. Granted the last time one of the other (read: non-Maptool vtts) demoed it for me was back in March of this year, and at that time MT rocked the socks off the other ones I had seen. It has been a while, so others may have improved theirs...anyone want to demo it for me. I will have to update my DirectX from the spawn-of-the-devil-site and test yours.