We had our first session using Maptools tonight. We had positives and negatives. We could get 2 of the players to connect to my game, but we never could get the other two to connect. Also when one of the connected computers went down he could not get connected back. I had hooked up with the first two players earlier in the week and last night tried to hook up with one of the players who also couldn't get in tonight. I have another program I use at work quite often called gotomeeting that lets you show your screen to other computers and even give them mouse and keyboard control or to make other computers be presenters so you can use their computer. By using this program we got all 5 computers up and running with TeamSpeak and all 5 connected with Gotomeeting. This meant myself and our other two computer knowledgeable guys could see the 2 computers having trouble. We forwarded the proper port, set up 51234 to pass thru the firewall, made sure they were using the most recent Java. No matter what they would try to connect and get a translucent grayed out screen with the word "connection" on it. After several minutes one of the computers would return an error message "IOError:java.net.socketexception:Connection Reset".
Luckily I had a backup plan. I had one of the players connected become the presenter in gotomeeting and give everyone keyboard and mouse control. Then everyone used that one computer as the PCs computer and I ran my computer as the GM They had trouble moving the counters around some because they were using an external program to run another program but at least we could get the session in.
My computer is a laptop with AMD Atlon 3200 processor and 768 RAM running XP Home with Java 6.03 and 1.3.b18 MT. It sits behind a linksys router with the port forwarded and the firewall set for the same port to be allowed. My computer is running Wireless G
The two computers having trouble -- one sits behind a linksys router set up like mine hard connected to the router with 2GB of mem, XP Home, Java 6.03 and 1.3.b18. -- the other is a new Vista system hooked directly to a Westell DSL modem with 2GB mem, Java 6.03 and MT 1.3.b18. The funny thing is the gotomeeting runs a Java applet of some sort and you can see the calls for it in the java output, but I never see anything in there for MT.
This is a shot I call Spell Ground Zero. As you can see a few spells were dropped here. A Sleep from the beguiler got 3 of the 4 goblins holding lit torches that had just climbed up on the fuel wagon. The 4th gobbie opened up one of the barrells of volatiles and threw his torch in causing a 2 round delayed reaction for it to blow up. The very next round though the magister in the party quickened that reaction by dropping a fireburst on one of the lit torches merrily burning on the wagon. Needless to say the wagon, fuel, oxen, and gobbie bodies exploded outward for the big 60ft radius of fire. It lit the 3 closest buildings but only caught 2 of the PCs falling just short of 2 of the other PCs. Also a Mind Jab, 2 dazes, a colorspray, and another sleep were all thrown in the general area.
This is a slightly zoomed out version of the fight showing down bodies everywhere. The session was a blast even though we had the technical difficulties. Once we figure out what is causing the connection problems, this group should rock. A Shoanti Barbarian, a Dwarven Druid, Half Elf Beguiler, Varisian Magister, and Dwarven Warblade should work out pretty good. The people were learning how to move tokens and what the various buttons do. We had chat to begin with but about half way thru the players computer chat box locked up and wouldn't show anything even if you opened and closed it. You could still create a macro and when pushed it would log into the GM computers chat. I was afraid to have them shut that connection down just in case they couldn't get connected back up like the others couldn't when they dropped out. Thus we just rolled on and used the gotomeeting chat function and teamspeak.
Often the player chat can lock if they are loading a new map. Sometimes this can take many minutes. Were you switching between maps when this happened?
trevor wrote:The networking stuff is really peculiar. We can sit down one night with you and one of the people who couldn't connect and see what we can figure out
We have a few other things to try out first. Uninstall and reinstall Java. Hard code the internal IP on the router and give a permanent port forwarding and reverify firewall settings. What is real weird is when he sets up his server and does the connection check it comes back a success but then none of us can connect to him. We get the same translucent gray screen then connection error he gets. The VISTA computer may be a different issue because when we got him to try and set up a server and do the test connection his failed. With him being Vista and only on a DSL modem none of us were familiar enough with that setup to know if there was a port forwarding or opening thing that we needed to do.
If we can't figure it out we will definitely take you up on the offer.
On the chat lockup -- no we didn't change maps when it happened but the new users were doing all sorts of things playing with the program and clicking buttons all over the place. I was looking at the main computer and didn't see the lockup happen. I honestly hadn't noticed it until I pasted some text in chat and looked back over at the other computer that was monitoring their view and it had a blank chat screen without the input box.
After everyone got off I shutdown the remote players computer and tried to reconnect to my server and sure enough it wouldn't reconnect. I then brought my DM comp server down, shut down the program, brought it back up and restarted the server then tried to reconnect with a fresh run on the players comp and it connected immediately. I was wondering if my DM server was hanging after the trouble player's comp tried to access and then wouldn't let any other computers connect.
Trouble shooting session tonight with our resident IT and the two guys whose comps would not connect last time. We will call one Vista guy and the other KOD guy. I had a theory that proved quite true.
I had our IT guy load up a campaign and connect his second comp and then I connected two comps to his server. We then had Vista guy try and connect. At first nothing then bamm he got in So one of our first night casualties is a runner now. WOOT!
We then had KOD try to connect. Nada -- he only got the translucent greyed out screen and the word "connecting" before it finally errored out. To test my theory I then disconnected one of my computers and then tried to reconnect. Nope, all I got was the greyed translucent screen and "connecting" message. We then had the IT guy disconnect his 2nd comp and then try and connect across the web as well as LAN and direct. NADA. Once the KOD (or affectionately called Kiss of Death) computer tried to connect no one else could connect to the Server. The only way to rectify this is for the Server computer to shut MapTools all the way down and then bring it back up.
We tried reloading Java, cutting off and on firewalls, DMZ on the router, looking for oddball conflicts with ports on the router, shutting down his WAP, we even tried running MapTools on some of the lower port numbers like 80 etc... We even had the KOD guy try his wife's computer and an old laptop that he uses for DMGenie. Unfortunately these were old comps with little memory so when he tried to start MapTools on both of them, they both did reboots -- weird once again.
So our next step is for me to slip up there one night next week and do a hands on rather than remote trial over the web. I will also be carrying up two laptops to hook into his system and see if we can get him up and running on the LAN. The step after that will be for our IT guy to bring his Cable router to a FTF session in November and we will swap out KOD's cable router and see if that is the problem.
The good news is that everyone is still very gung ho to play and our next session will be this Thursday or next Thursday. KOD will just have to access MapTools via Gotomeeting over one of my backup comps until we figure his lamented comps problem. Maybe this is his karma showing up, since he was the DM of our campaign that ended in March and was the first of us to DM a TPK (Well almost a TPK if my druid hadn't kept the Green Dragon occuppied for 9+ rounds while the ranger ran the other way. Boy did that dragon enjoy that pesky druid when it finally caught her).
Here is a copy of one of my player's in character recap of Session 1.
Diary of Vaeros Rakarron
Erastus 30, 4707 AR
Well, the "big day" is here - the so-called Swallowtail Festival to consecrate the new temple. Should be some good food and drink to be had, anyway. Supposedly lots of vendors too, but I doubt there will be anything worth buying. I could use a new hourglass after breaking mine in that fire experiment. I haven't had a long idle day in a while, so I suppose I'll make the festival rounds unless it's too dreadfully boring. More later.
So the mayor and sheriff were about as dull as I expected, and Cyrdak was his usual impressive self, but the goblin attack was certainly not boring! I had just made final arrangements on getting a new hourglass made when one of the little buggers stabbed a dog and then a small child, and they started coming out of the woodwork like roaches. Two of the stupid little things tried to jump on Belor and the mayor from the temple roof and missed, which was worth a quick laugh. Much smarter, and sort of unexpected, was some filthy dwarf woman letting loose a couple of dogs someone had chained up near the plaza. Nothing better to fight goblins with than a big mastiff at your side. Now there's something to think about...a trained fighting dog. Will have to consider that if this business goes anywhere. But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.
I started to get excited at the prospect of using some of the magic that I've studied but couldn't use before on the little green vermin. The first thing I tried was what I call the "headache spell" - practicing the theory without a target gives me a bad one. Not so when used on a live creature, though - I hit the child-stabber with it and it staggered briefly from the pain. That was satisfying, even though I couldn't summon enough mental energy to put it down.
I just hoped I would surviv the crowd, much less the goblins - so many stupid people screaming and running. You'd think big scary monsters were attacking and not oversized green rats. Goblins obviously can be dangerous, but like with any dangerous vermin, just use a little caution. As I tried not to get trampled, I saw a few other people who at least had it together - the Mayor, Sheriff Belor, Cyrdak, and Abstalar of course, the dwarf who turned the dogs loose, another dwarf with a big axe, and some big huge Shaonti in animal hides. He punched one, that must have felt pretty good for him. And was that really Idono climbing up on that roof like he had a plan or something? That was a surprising sight.
The goblin I speared with my mind came running past me, not paying any attention to me, so I took the opportunity to introduce it to my staff. I was right about hitting one of the little stinkers - it did feel pretty good. It was still kind of twitching after I clocked it though, so I took a moment to finish it off. Meanwhile, the big guy had punched another goblin but looked like he was stabbed somewhere along the lines as well, the dwarf with the axe used it to good effect on another one, and the dirty dwarf tried to stop a goblin that was climbing up after Idono. Speaking of him, did he cast a spell? The goblin that was climbing up to him suddenly stopped climbing up, and didn't do anything else either.
I let myself get distracted by cleaning the end of my staff off on the dead goblin's rags, and almost didn't notice a few goblins climbing up on the cart that was loaded down with fuel for the big bonfire tonight. Three of them suddenly keeled over but the fourth dropped a torch in a barrel. Looking around, I didn't see any people around the cart except the axe-wielding dwarf, who was moving away. Since the cart was going to go anyway, why not speed the process? There might be some more goblins skulking down there too, so I decided to try out the spell that causes an open flame to magically burst. What an effect! Not only did it seriously injure the goblins on the wagon, but it ignited the fuels and the cart exploded! My eyebrows were a bit singed but I had judged myself rightly to be out of the blast. Unfortunately it caught both dwarves. The smelly female was just knocked down, but the one with the axe had some burns on him. Ah well, they probably didn't notice my gesture to invoke the spell, and if they did I'll buy them a beer or something.
I was surprised to see a goblin coming around what was left of the wagon - an old female who was singing that stupid song the goblins managed to cobble together - more of a chant, really. There was a brief surge of magic and the dwarf with the axe fell down snoring, and I felt terribly drowsy for a moment but managed to shake it off. I reached down and tried to shake him awake. I saw Idono jump down from the building (which was on fire along with a couple of others; hope the other people can muster enough courage to get a water brigade going) and move towards me. The tall Shaonti was still up, and I got another surprise from the female dwarf. In addition to being apparently smarter than she looked (going by her releasing the dogs), she turned into a bear! The dwarf/bear moved over to help the big barbarian - he did look hurt.
This time, there was no mistaking it - Idono cast a spell. Colored lights too bright to look at sprayed from his hands, and the goblin female was caught in it. When I opened my eyes again, she was swaying on her feet and looked barely aware of what was going on. The dwarf with the axe moved in on her, and just in case she was faking it I moved in with him, ready to help defend him (I confess to feeling a little guilty about catching him in that explosion). He was having a hard time chopping through the animal hides the goblin was wearing and there was no telling how long the effects of Idono's spell would last, so I moved to a tactical position opposite the dwarf and took a swing with my staff, which unsurprisingly had less effect than the dwarf's axe. Idono also moved in with a dagger. Finally, just as the goblin was snapping out of it, the dwarf struck a blow that almost cut her in half. It was all I could do to avoid the resulting spray of blood. Looking around, I didn't see any goblins moving, the shapeshifting dwarf had run up behind the axe-wielding dwarf and healed him (does she run out of surprises?), and the big man had just felled the last of the ankle-biters. There was a commotion coming from the gates now, though. Great.
Glanrus wrote:
We then had KOD try to connect. Nada -- he only got the translucent greyed out screen and the word "connecting" before it finally errored out. To test my theory I then disconnected one of my computers and then tried to reconnect. Nope, all I got was the greyed translucent screen and "connecting" message.
This is really peculiar. It must be locking up the thread that is accepting new connections. That's some weird stuff.
I'd be interested in what happens when you have him change computers, and then change routers. It feels like it'll be one of those two.
The KOD computer finally bought it. It had a bad HD controller and ate the hard drive. He bought a new computer and all is well again. So no more connection issues. We were hitting the FTF sessions pretty hard from January-May, but we just started the online Pathfinder series back again. We had been using Maptools off and on for quick view set ups but not on an ongoing campaign. Here is a screenie from our third session since starting back up.
Our FTF group is staying 3.5 so we decided to run Pathfinder in 4th edition so I had to do a good bit of conversion but it was fun and it taught me alot about the 4thE and the latest MT builds. We ran the first couple of sessions back in 1.3.b31 and each session since in 1.3.b34 and both versions seemed very stable.
As you can see from the screenshot using a different halo for each character and then selecting use halo color for vision allows you to quickly see what that character can see when you scroll over them.
Also to eliminate dead body clutter due to minions in 4E, I mark the monsters with the dead state (red X) and then make them tiny and send them to the background. That keeps the players from getting active monsters confused with dead ones.
Glanrus wrote:Also to eliminate dead body clutter due to minions in 4E, I mark the monsters with the dead state (red X) and then make them tiny and send them to the background. That keeps the players from getting active monsters confused with dead ones.
Yes, great idea. I'm glad I read this - I ran into some trouble (very minor, mind you) with dead kobolds all over the place.
Yeah, I often make the dead guys invisible to the players, but then I still have the issue of double-clicking in order to get the popup list, so moving them to the background layer is a great idea.
And don't things on the Object and Background layers display their Notes field when clicked on? It might be useful to pre-fill the Notes with "dead hobgoblin" or something so that when it's moved, it can be easily determined what the dead thing is. Err, was.
They had trouble moving the counters around some because they were using an external program to run another program but at least we could get the session in.
