VTTs Feel the Strain

Gamers are increasingly turning to virtual tabletops (VTT) to network with other players around the globe. Thanks to the pandemic, virtual gaming platforms are experiencing an unexpected surge that is stressing servers and causing lag. How are VTTs holding up?

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

With the pandemic pushing more and more people to shelter in place, gamers are using online tools to role-play with others when they can't game in person. The video game industry is already experiencing this surge, with Steam reaching 20 million concurrent online users, with 6.2 million in-game at the time. D&D Beyond's usage is up too: doubling its active users in the past few weeks with a threefold increase on its Discord server.

They're not the only ones experiencing increased interest. Ed Diana, owner of NBOS Software, which produces the free online gaming tool, Skwyre, noticed a change:

"There has been a slight uptick in sales of our mapping and notes applications, which I assume is due to people having some more free time to work on their campaigns. Hopefully people are finding world building to be a great way to keep their minds focused on something creative during this stressful time."

Joe Lesko, creator of Fabletop, saw a sharp increase:

"The number of new users has roughly tripled so far, but the system can handle much more than that, so we should be fine. With extra time at home, I've been working on some new features that players have been asking for."

Tobias Drewry, CEO at Mesa Mundi and the lead developer for D20PRO, definitely noticed an uptick in activity.

"D20PRO is not a web based application so resources used to create a game in D20PRO are retained on the GM/Host's computer. Additionally, D20PRO is only being impacted by networking issues related to ISP's rather than commercial server infrastructures. There is a learning curve to setting up D20PRO for remote play as it can suffer from aggressive firewall rules and the like, however, with a short amount of work to create an exception, our customers are nearly all up and running with a few odd-case exceptions. To help folks, our team is spending a lot more time watching and responding to our discord and forum support channels. A little one-on-one support is almost always appreciated!"

Like D20PRO, EpicTable has experienced an increase in interest but since it runs on the user's computer the load isn't a problem, according to John Lammers, the creator of EpicTable:

"Yes, there's been a noticeable uptick in EpicTable downloads, new customers, and active games. Handling the load is not a problem. EpicTable is a Windows app (though some play on Macs under Parallels or on Linux via Wine), so really, most of the work is done on the GM's and players' computers. The services that must be in the middle, like messaging and sharing of resources like maps, are minimally used; plus, they're cloud-based and scale automatically with the load."

Tom Lackemann, founder of AstralTabletop, saw tremendous growth in activity over the past weeks.

"This recent growth has been remarkable for our 3-person team to handle but we're going strong! We've been fueled by user feedback since the beginning and it's been great hearing from new users who are just starting to dip their toes into the online world of tabletop roleplaying."

Fantasy Grounds has seen a tenfold spike in users and Roll20 has seen an increase as well. Roll20 saw this coming, according to Amber Cook, Director of Business Development at Roll20:

"We have seen an increase in traffic as a result of people staying inside, and moving their in-person games online. We noticed a significant spike in traffic from Italy, Spain & other European countries and shortly thereafter in North America. Roll20 has seen a lot of growth in recent years, so we were already working on improving our efficiency & planning new features but the recent increase in traffic has caused us to speed up some of that work to accommodate new users. Our ever growing development team has dramatically reduced the speed at which our servers respond and our capacity to scale."

Whatever platform you choose, VTTs have been preparing for this moment. They're ready.

 

[Shiroiken]

We've been playing on Roll20 for a long time. The first weekend, the servers were obviously stressed, and the lag was terrible (one player got booted out and couldn't even log back in). The following weekend was much better, and overall has gotten back to just short of normal, with only the occasional lag.

 

[Prakriti]

I’m going to be honest. I was fairly dismissive of online portals feeling it was overly complicated and fiddley. After playing three or four sessions I can truly say I’m a convert.

In many ways roll20 is easier to DM than a standard game which involves battlemaps and minis. The prep can be done in advance, rules are on tap, calculations done in game. I’m almost tempted to try Pathfinder again if only they had the full rule set available.

It also suffers less from distractions and players talking BS because people have to concentrate a bit harder. Love it! Will definitely be keeping at least one of our games to a weekly sesh online even if lockdown ends.

There are definitely things I miss about in-person games, but... a VTT makes everything so much easier. It does all the math for you (applying modifiers to attacks and skill checks, etc.), for example, which probably saves at least ~10 minutes of game-time per session. And clicking a button is a lot faster than rolling dice. As a DM, I can keep multiple monster stat blocks open at a time and don't have to flip between pages. In general, the pace of online games is just plain faster, and I'm not sure I could ever go back to playing in-person after playing online.

 

[R_J_K75]

We've been playing on Roll20 for a long time. The first weekend, the servers were obviously stressed, and the lag was terrible (one player got booted out and couldn't even log back in). The following weekend was much better, and overall has gotten back to just short of normal, with only the occasional lag.

I was trying to log on to Roll20 this morning and couldnt. I was using MS Edge. My neighbor was having the same problem and said that he had to update MS Edge then it worked. I just switched over to Chrome and I was able to logon. But Im sure the servers will be stressed no what browser your using.

 

[TheSword]

There is another upside to using VTT that I never even considered. The psychology of the fog of war setting on roll20 definitely changes how people play.

It is possible for the rest of the party to split even a little bit and the player then feels alone because they can’t see the others. If they get distracted they can end up completely separated and end up having to call out, ‘where are you guys’ which I then say alerts potential dungeon enemies.

In a session on Wednesday a necromancy dropped a darkness spell on the party. Around a table they just would have confidently walked through it as they would still see the map and their tokens and would roughly know where they were. With roll20 I was able to remove their ‘sight’ while inside the sphere making their whole screen black. They could still move their token within the confines of the rooms and corridors. However not being able to see each other was psychologically massive. They all retreated and one ended up going the wrong way getting separated and having to communicate with shouts. It made for a very interesting session.

 

[Reynard]

There is another upside to using VTT that I never even considered. The psychology of the fog of war setting on roll20 definitely changes how people play.

It is possible for the rest of the party to split even a little bit and the player then feels alone because they can’t see the others. If they get distracted they can end up completely separated and end up having to call out, ‘where are you guys’ which I then say alerts potential dungeon enemies.

I am looking forward to Fantasy Grounds Unity's full implementation so I can use the line of sight aspects for just this reason. PCs seeing the darkness swallow up the areas behind as they delve deeper should have a nice claustrophobic feeling.

 

[Jimmy Dick]

I was trying to log on to Roll20 this morning and couldnt. I was using MS Edge. My neighbor was having the same problem and said that he had to update MS Edge then it worked. I just switched over to Chrome and I was able to logon. But Im sure the servers will be stressed no what browser your using.

MS Edge does not work for Roll20. You need Chrome or Firefox. Be advised that Roll20 just released an updated dynamic lighting system on the 8th which uses WebGL. That works on Chrome and Firefox, but not on MS Edge.

 

[R_J_K75]

MS Edge does not work for Roll20. You need Chrome or Firefox. Be advised that Roll20 just released an updated dynamic lighting system on the 8th which uses WebGL. That works on Chrome and Firefox, but not on MS Edge.

It was working with MS Edge up until yesterday. If Roll20 just released an update then that's probably the problem. As far as I know my neighbor updated MS Edge and his still works so who knows. I had Chrome installed and that works so I'll just use that.

 

[Jimmy Dick]

It is advised not to use MS Edge with Roll20, but if it works for you, great.

 

[Shiroiken]

I was trying to log on to Roll20 this morning and couldnt. I was using MS Edge. My neighbor was having the same problem and said that he had to update MS Edge then it worked. I just switched over to Chrome and I was able to logon. But Im sure the servers will be stressed no what browser your using.

Servers are definitely stressed, but I found in general it best to normally use a separate browser just for Roll20 (or any VTT). Not a computer guy, but the main browser always seems to get clogged up more often. I normally use Firefox overall, but use Chrome for Roll20.

 

[cmad1977]

I’ve had a few issues but nothing that interrupted game time.