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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5729858" data-attributes="member: 82106">MT's VBL really IS easy to use though. Just go to the VBL editing mode and snap rectangles around everything so each wall has a line of VBL embedded in it somewhere. You can erase stray VBL by using the solid box and hitting shift when you lay down the box and it erases. I generally then draw a few straight lines from inside corners so the LoS is blocked by the corner. Usually takes 10-15 minutes at most to do a complex map. Then just turn on FoW and 'night' for lighting if you want the area to be dark. You can then create some tokens (I have some images of torches and lanterns), put a light source on them, drop them on the object layer wherever they're located, and you're ready to go.Macros for monsters particularly I find to be the obnoxious part of the whole scheme with 4e. There's a macro that will sort of parse the stat block from MB or Compendium, but it usually botches most of the combat macros, so you have to go over each one, fix them, etc. Often oddball power effects and such have to be done in fairly non-obvious ways (at least in Rumble). I figure 10-15 minutes minimum per monster type and you'll often run into cases where tokens get corrupted, macros go into endless loops and crash maptool etc etc etc. I have found it takes me considerably more time to make a monster's macro than it does to design the monster in the first place. PCs are worse, they have vast numbers of obscure effects that can't easily be categorized or might be coded several different ways. Usually the players end up botching them up or again you get stuff that crashes, etc. MORE debugging. That's really what killed it for me for 4e anyway. I write and debug code all day every day for a living, it was WAY too much like work (and MT's macro language is frankly a horrible undebuggable nightmare). This is really all more the fault of 4e having such a crazed number of different effects and whatnot than any fault of MT itself. SO, for me I'd say if the DDI VTT can get CLOSE on the vision stuff and add SOME flexibility in terms of artwork and let you break away from just stacking tiles to make a dungeon I think it will be the cat's ass. With the ability to just drop a character into it and have it WORK that saves me 2-3 hours a week of PC macro debugging, and with all the monsters likewise that's another 2-3 hours a week saved. I'd definitely go back to running my online 4e campaign at that point for sure. At least as long as the players don't have to all pay for DDI because I'm pretty sure most of them won't... Anyway, it is good to hear the VT is getting closer to achieving its full potential. Frankly I think they'd be smart to pour money into that baby and get it fully up to speed. Being able to manage a campaign, play, keep all your notes and material online, etc and I think it is almost a whole new genre of game. Really, MMO's are a pale imitation of real RPGs, but they are damned popular since you can play anytime online, etc. If you could play with ACTUAL PEOPLE any old time in a real fully featured campaign setting? Yeah, I think they'd have something that is more than just "play D&D online".</blockquote>

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