Going back to basics (my brainstorming)

[palmer]

It's funny you say that. I got VBL and vision and fog almost instantly, thanks to Brad's videos. I was using those before I made macros more complex than "/me rolls [1d20+4]"

I was using VBL and light since my first game... I really don't see the complexity in them. What parts don't you get?

[Rumble]

While I understood the ideas, when we tried it in our first game (even after watching the videos) we found that we couldn't see anything, or my players lost their tokens, or couldn't ever see them. Since then, I realize there are a lot of other things that were the real reasons (ownership, poor use of VBL, etc). We ended up wasting about an hour of our session trying to get fog, vision, and VBL to work like we expected.

As a result, we said, "forget light/visibility for now, let's just play." And, we pretty much ignored it ever since.

Now, I think about it, and I don't want to get into low-light, colored light, shadow (or dim light, I guess), radii, editing different light sources, etc. I have adopted VBL but we don't use fog frequently (I think once or twice since we started). I may examine it more now that select vision is a possibility for the players (though I am hoping they'll make selection vision a toggle for the GM).

So, I guess it's not that I don't understand how light/vision/VBL works in theory, but I don't want to bother in practice. In fact, what I'd really like is for someone to write a tutorial about it on the wiki, because I am not qualified to do so. And I don't like watching video tutorials (it's not how I learn).

[FrozenPhoenix]

So it appears that I misunderstood. I'm still waiting for a method of injecting actual thought processes into the internet so that we can overcome all of the shortcomings of this "language" stuff.

If I understand correctly now, the recommendation is more of a "do whatever you're comfortable with and can reasonably accomplish before your first game." Correct? If so, I do have about a month before we'll end up using the tools, which should give me plenty of time to work out a basic framework and get comfortable with using it. I can also use my wife's computer to connect to my game, to make sure that things seem to be working properly prior to game time.

Regardless, I think it's time for me to stop just thinking about how I'm going to do this, and actually get started. Thanks for the advice!

(soon to come: random questions)

[Rumble]

If I understand correctly now, the recommendation is more of a "do whatever you're comfortable with and can reasonably accomplish before your first game."

That is a remarkably succinct distillation of my meandering. That's precisely what I meant: don't overload yourself.

[Phergus]

I can also use my wife's computer to connect to my game, to make sure that things seem to be working properly prior to game time.

Just FYI, you can run two instances of MapTool on your PC and have one be the server and the other connected as a player instance. Works best if you have two monitors but even without is often better having to go back and forth between two computers.

Unless the 2nd computer is a laptop setting on the desk next to you anyways.

[biodude]

I don't have time to read through the 5 pages (!) of replies, so this is mostly in response to comments on page 1. Apologies if any of this has been mentioned before.:

If you want to provide a "User Guide" to help a user get the most our of MapTools in as little time as possible, it really comes down to: what do you want to do with MapTool? (as Rumble mentioned). People will find out about MapTool for different features, and are already using it in different ways, not all of which use all the features available. By assuming a standard approach to using MapTool, a user guide would risk distracting a user with unnecessary information. It is important to point out all the features of MapTool (it can do that? ) but not all the details about how too early.

Some people use MapTool to play over a network, others just want a single instance to play face-to-face (with a projector). Some want automation via macros, others specifically don't. Some import maps pre-made, and some will want to use MapTools to make maps from scratch. MapTools also has features that allow you to set-up our play games that don't require other players (although I suspect this is a small minority). My point is that there are enough features for everyone and the steps that a user would follow to get what they want will not be the same for everyone.

I would therefore suggest that a user guide should be separated into specific themes, or groups of features:

• Graphics: maps, tokens
• Lighting & vision (separate from graphics
• Token properties and saving tokens.
• Network & connecting
• Automation: macros (and mention that there are freely-available systems already built)

A quick tour that shows off all these aspects would be a good place for every user to start, and then allow them to decide which part of the features they want to learn how to use first. Some might jump straight to the macros. Others might skip the Network portion altogether (or go there last).
On the macro side of things, it is much more efficient for someone like me to download a complete framework and modify it to suit me: it means I don't have to start from scratch, but the ability to edit these things means I can also get closer to what I want, which is a huge advantage of an open-source tool like MapTool.

[Rumble]

I would therefore suggest that a user guide should be separated into specific themes, or groups of features:

• Graphics: maps, tokens
• Lighting & vision (separate from graphics
• Token properties and saving tokens.
• Network & connecting
• Automation: macros (and mention that there are freely-available systems already built)

That's just about what I did - I wrote a set of tutorials (almost in that order, even) covering those things. Except for light and vision since I'm not a heavy user of it.

What it doesn't have is a quick tour (or the "portal" approach you mention) - seeing a snippet, and then saying, "Take me to more info on that."

[biodude]

What it doesn't have is a quick tour (or the "portal" approach you mention) - seeing a snippet, and then saying, "Take me to more info on that."

Despite all the stuff I said about the fact that different users actually use MapTool in different ways, I also get the feeling that part of the reason for this is that many users were looking for a specific set of features, which MapTools provides. But they might not know about all the other cool things MapTool can do.
A brief overview would help with the marketing and initial orientation, explaining and demonstrating most of the general features of MapTool. After seeing all the glory, the user can then decide where to begin, as you say.

Honestly, that's mostly what I got out of the video tutorials: seeing the various features demonstrated, then deciding whether to watch other tutorials on the same topic, and also knowing what words to use to search the forums to get more info, etc. The format of the video tutorials (concise, digestible and practical) is what makes them so awesome. It's understandable that they are a bit out of date, given how insanely rapid the recent development has been (which is a testament to the development team's hard work). Now that v 1.3 is stabilizing, it is definitely a good time to update the documentation & tutorials.
On that note, I made myself a wiki account, but don't have the time or expertise to help in a meaningful way, beyond editing and filling in the holes I do find, like empty pages and stuff that I eventually do find out, but couldn't find on the wiki.

Cheers

[bobthedog]

I would therefore suggest that a user guide should be separated into specific themes, or groups of features:

• Graphics: maps, tokens
• Lighting & vision (separate from graphics
• Token properties and saving tokens.
• Network & connecting
• Automation: macros (and mention that there are freely-available systems already built)

That's just about what I did - I wrote a set of tutorials (almost in that order, even) covering those things. Except for light and vision since I'm not a heavy user of it.

What it doesn't have is a quick tour (or the "portal" approach you mention) - seeing a snippet, and then saying, "Take me to more info on that."

This sounds like it could be implemented in the Wiki, and I'd vote for it being on the Main Page or in a very easy-to-find place. I mean, a page that says:

With map tools you can:

Import or draw your own maps and make your own miniatures (called 'tokens'). Find out more about:
- making maps
- importing maps
- making tokens

Use lighting and vision tools to make it easy to "see" the game. Find out more about:
- setting up lights and vision
- the vision blocking layer

And so on, with each link taking the user to a guide, which would then expand on these concepts.