MapTool Gadget for Google Wave

[TheRooster]

So, is there any development going on for a Wave interface to MT? Or is that something that would need to wait for the next major version of MT (i.e. 1.4)?

I am really quite interested in MapTool gadgets for Google Wave. I think that Google Wave could be an incredible player interface to MapTool.

I have heard talk of having a bunch of the same tools/features that are in MT available in stand-alone Wave gadgets (i.e. dice rollers, initiative trackers, maps), but that isn't really what I think of when I think of a MapTool Gadget. My ideal would be a simplified MapTool interface to the main MapTool server via Google Wave.

Three modules should cover most everything. (I'm sure other people can come up with more gadgets, but these are the basics.)

1) MapViewer - connects to the MT server to get the current map including tokens. Would show the players view.
2) Chat Interface - converting blips to MT chat entries and vice-versa.
3) Initiative List - shows the current initiative list from MT.

The MapViewer gadget could be anything ranging from a simple drag-able image that is updated by the server when changes are made, to a copy of the rendering engine in the main app.

I think that, unless MT is being used as just a simple game map, the GM will most likely always have to use the regular application to run/administer the game.

[Amaril]

In Google Wave, there's an advantage to parsing out the features as different extensions. For example, having a separate dice roller designed and developed for a specific game system will allow for easier play than having a dice roller that's trying to accommodate many game systems. Rumble and I have had this conversation, and he pretty much supports the idea. The syntax can be simplified for a game system because you don't have to worry about ambiguity.

If you bundle it all together, it becomes much more difficult to manage and maintain the subparts and the extension quickly becomes an ugly multi-headed beast. I think what MapTool for Wave really needs is a simple way to share a map and support FoW, maybe lighting, too.

I also think it should be a separate product rather than one that tries to work with the client-side application, meaning it should not be a requirement to get one to work with the other. If you want the features of the client, run that version. If you want to use Wave, use that instead. But to try to get the two to talk together, as fun and exciting as it might be, is insane.

[Rumble]

There's also a speed advantage - much of dice rolling, for instance, involves relatively laborious regex parsing and so forth, so the fewer patterns you have to compare the blip's text against, the faster it will be. I wrote RandomLeeTwenty, which is good (if I do say so myself), but it is not trivial to manage. There are a lot of desired features, but it's getting harder to implement new ones without stumbling over old ones.

In a way, it strikes me that it might be better to take the "framework" approach and write robots that focus on one game, rather than try to be everything to everybody.

Amaril is looking into a Savage Worlds bot, and I will eventually be looking at, say, a WoD-bot based on Random Lee's structure. Might just be a better way to do it - atomize it into smaller, quicker tools that you can drop in when needed.

[TheRooster]

I also think it should be a separate product rather than one that tries to work with the client-side application, meaning it should not be a requirement to get one to work with the other. If you want the features of the client, run that version. If you want to use Wave, use that instead. But to try to get the two to talk together, as fun and exciting as it might be, is insane.

I'm not sure I understand your position. Would both the "client" and the Wave connect to the server? I see no reason why the Wave should need to talk to the client. The server, yes, but not the client. The Wave gadget/bot would be its own client. Actually each gadget/bot would be a partial client only responsible for one piece of the interface.

If, instead you are saying that the Wave version and the current MT should be completely separate, I just have to ask, "Why?" The benefits of being able to use either interface yet all connect to the same server are huge!

When you say there should not be a requirement to get both working, are you talking about for the players? I would like to see the players only needing one or the other. Only using one at a time.

I can also envision a scenario where the GM doesn't need the full version too, but there are so many nice features in the full version that I would personally consider it a requirement. IMO map creation and macros are things that have no place in a Wave gadget/bot.

Not leveraging all the nice features of MT seems like a waste and a big step back.

[Craig]

After playing with wave for a while here are my impressions
Great for chat based part of any roleplaying.

Utterly horrible for the map, trying to shoe horn a multiple user map that does what maptool does is going to be slow and a user interface night mare.

[Azhrei]

Utterly horrible for the map, trying to shoe horn a multiple user map that does what maptool does is going to be slow and a user interface night mare.

+1. I can't agree strongly enough.

I think it might be reasonable as a viewer-only interface, but I can't imagine using it to drag-n-drop tokens, resolve VBL, and so on. (Remember that all of that stuff is done on the client!)

However if it were only used to view the map (the phrase "share another client's screen in readonly mode" is more descriptive) then it might be workable.